Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!
by MissMoppet
Summary: The sweetest kittens have the sharpest claws! A dirty and clever romp based on a pastiche of B-movies and pulp; featuring spies, zombies, and guns (Hr/S, H/D) CHAPTER 8 is now up! NOTE: now re-edited to represent the new OotP Canon.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: applicable for all chapters.  **

This is a work of fiction based on JKRowling's stories and characters.  I own nothing and am making no money from this project.  Readers should be warned that the fic deserves its R rating, and that future chapters will include profanity, slash (m/m relations), drug use, potentially non-consensual sexual contact, and occasional graphic violence.  There is also camp, preposterous humour, and wigs.  Something for everyone, you might say.  ;)

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**Faster, Mudblood!  Kill! Kill!**

**Prologue  **

_Malfoy__ Manor: _September 1st, 2000____

_Here comes my son_, Lucius thinks, a breath of undeniable pride tingling in the cockles of his chest.  _Here comes my__ son._

He folds the Sunday edition of the _Daily Prophet and sets the paper aside, having taken his tea into the sunroom, which faces east and has the expected tear-jerking view of rugged moors and lush forest.  In like, the Malfoys have a proud English garden, though with a few decidedly exotic touches; with the help of magic they are able to keep palm trees clear into winter, and fruit trees of all variety bloom year-round, offering up their succulent flesh and pleasant perfumes.  And the pool…ah, the pool!  Hardly a cement hole in the ground, aforementioned son Draco has spent the morning sunning on a sandbar that bellies up from its lagoon-like depths, lazily sipping on a pellegrino—his latest fancy, garnered on his summer holiday in the French Riviera._

And now he pads across the terrace in bare feet, leaving a careless trail of sand and water in his wake.  Continuing on to the sunroom, he drips all along the Tuscan marble floors, fully aware that the house elves will clean up after him, as they always do, and knowing that in his suite of rooms he will find a fabulously tailored set of robes, freshly pressed and laid out on the duvet, his shoes smartly polished and set off to the side.  

"Father," Draco grunts amiably, pushing on into the foyer, tugging his swim trucks out of his arse crack as he goes.  

_My son, now a man.___

Lucius follows Draco into the foyer, a grand, high-ceiled affair that's frilled and bedecked with the usual tokens of pureblood grandeur: hand-carved crown molding, fairy-lit chandeliers ("Most flattering to the complexion," Narcissa insists), and medieval torture devices aplenty, all of them tastefully set on high daises, where they will be less of a potential hazard for drunken houseguests.  _Tacky, Lucius thinks, but his friends have their own notions regarding what proclivities and tastes should reside within the soul of a Death Eater.  _

He must admit he finds the thumbscrews quite amusing. 

Draco plods up the main staircase, pausing at the landing to examine his own reflection, beamed out for the world in the gold-leaf embossed frame of a mirror nearly four-metres high.  He scrubs a hand through his pale hair as if hoping to shake loose stray grains of sand, then yawns and stretches, scratching at his chest.  

Though they regard each other with the detached ease of long-time flat mates, Lucius loves his only son….in his own way.  There's envy there, too—co-mingled with a pride so fierce that Lucius feels very nearly sick from its hardening grasp.  Draco lives the life that Lucius himself always dreamed about, spending all his days as a playboy layabout; a money-burning, beach-bronzed decadent.  As of late his new goal in life is building his very own yacht, following straight off a set of blueprints that Lucius himself drew up while just a Hogwarts' schoolboy; when the beast is finished, Draco plans to marry the lovely Somae DeSilver and float down to the coast of Italy, where they can toast their glasses of pellegrino together night after night, then lie back and bob under the stars.

It's an easy life for Draco, and Lucius wants to keep it this way—everything cushy and moving along in wee, predictable doses.  He's pushed Draco before.  Has even shouted and smacked the boy in moments of outrage, because even with his soft little existence, Draco must be taught when a line has been crossed, when he's broken a rule irreparably.  He wants the boy to be comfortable, but not completely naïve, after all.  And let's face it: if he could help it he'd even stop pimply spots from breaking out on the boy's delicate backside.

But now Lucius must choose: should he go on protecting the luxurious life he's made for his son, his wife, and himself?  And does he honor his own son, or uphold the long history of powerful Malfoys who came before him, all of them pale and whispy from years of inbreeding, long-suffered by gout and consumption--bless their little hearts that once pumped such pure blood.  

When he took the Dark Mark, it was in part for Draco's own sake, and thusly functioned as insurance for the entire generation of Malfoys who would come after him.  Lucius had to admit that being a Death Eater wasn't a _bad job, exactly.  Just tiresome, at times.  All those dark revels and bloody balls to attend did tend to put a damper on his free time; not to mention keeping up the gruelly façade of being a normal, up-standing citizen.  He had talked his way out of standing trail and spending time in Azkaban more times than he cared to remember, and it was usually his money that had done the most persuasive bit of finagling.  More than anything, he wondered just how long he must continue to pay for the mistakes of those Malfoys who were already dead and buried—long forgotten by almost everyone, save Voldemort himself.  _

_Elephants never forget, and neither does Dumbledore.  Add vengeful Slytherin orphans to that list._

Draco flips his hair from his eyes, and in the mirror sees that his father has climbed the stairs and now stands directly behind him, silently watchful.  He smiles at his father's face—regally handsome—seeming almost shy as he does so.

_I'm sorry Draco.  There is no other way._

"Crucio," Lucius croaks, and though his voice would suggest that he feels non-committal towards this curse, his intentions are in fact very real.  

Just as the incantation leaves his father's mouth, Draco chooses to turn around, to face his father head on.

"Fath--?"  Draco chokes the word out, alarm filling his eyes as the curse jettisons toward him, skidded just past his shoulder and slamming into the mirror—the very spot where his own reflection had been only a split-second ago.

If wizards were in the practice of aiming painful, unforgivable curses at mirrors, then they might have learned years ago that curses can bounce on occasion.  Particularly if said mirror is located in Malfoy Manor, cost thousands of galleons, and possesses a most persnickety temper.  

"Yowch!  See how _you_ like it, Foxy!" The mirror gripes, eliciting a stream of light that momentarily hypnotizes Draco, holding his eyes to that glow up until the very moment that his father cries out in pain. 

The curse hits Lucius in one hard burst; not potent enough for the pain to linger, but strong enough to knock the wind clean out of him so that he stumbles backwards, teetering on the heels of his Italian loafers, feeling the sharp drop-off of the top step looming behind him.  He sees his son look on in confusion, his expression clear of anger (and for this Lucius is grateful), a thin trail of sweat snaking down his neck as he bolts his arm out, trying to catch Lucius by the cuff of his robes.  

_Too late. . ._

Draco memorizes each stair that his father hits, his body bouncing down the incline like a toy until he finally lands on the polished parquet with a sickening thud, bones breaking like a dozen or so matchsticks.   

"Father?" he calls from the top of the stairs, disbelief wavering in his voice.  

Gingerly, he climbs down the stairs, clinging to the banister like a child.  He sees his father's hand twitch once, his wand rolling from his fingertips.  His eyes are still open, shining like coins as he stares up into the crystal chandeliers.  

"Father?"  Draco implores, leaning over to fetch up his father's wand and finding that it's still warm to the touch.    

Still nothing.  

And then, finally, a last, forlorn effort.

_"Dad?"_

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	2. Chapter One: Rhoda Rhodes

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter One:  Rhoda Rhodes**

"No, no, no,"  Fudge said, tossing a few papers around on his desk for effect.  

"I'm busy, Marcy.  Tell that woman that I cannot, under any circumstances 

whatsoever, see any members of the press today."

"But sir!" Marcy squeaked, clutching her hands together.  "She's from _Witch _

_Weekly_!"

Fudge gave a gruff snort of contempt.  "So what?  That's a chick-rag, innit?  

Not even legitimate press, if you ask me…."

"_Witch Weekly_ is a magazine about _personalities_, sir, and only the best and the 

brightest qualify for their spotlight.  She probably wants to do a profile on 

you!  You may even be in the running for their yearly "best smile" award!"  

Marcy bounced at the knees a little, a few sticky curls falling over her 

forehead as she lost all composure, looking quite starry-eyed at the possibility 

of being secretary to a _Witch Weekly award-winner—not to say that being _

secretary to the Minister of Magic wasn't impressive in its own right, but 

politics weren't nearly as glamourous as paparazzi these days.

"Best smile, you say?"  Fudge asked, curious now.  He _did happen to possess the _

most expensive ivory dentures that galleons could buy.  And with all the 

speculative chit-chat about You-Know-Who's return circulating in the _Daily _

_Prophet_ for the last few years, he supposed it couldn't hurt to get a leg up in 

the popularity polls.  He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, wondering if he ought to 

grow a benevolent, graying beard before they shot his front page spread.  Beards 

always seemed to say good things about a man—or that's how they always seemed to 

work for old Merlin and Albus Dumbledore, anyway.    

"Hmm.  Send her in, then.  Only FIVE MINUTES, Marcy.  And then you get back in 

here and usher her out, right?"

"Yes, sir!"  Marcy scurried away, beaming.  

Right then.  Only answer two or three questions, boy.  And do NOT let her bully 

you into talking about You-Know-Who.  You are the boss, and best keep that in 

mind.  Make sure SHE keeps it in mind, too. 

A succinct, business-like knock came on the office door, announcing the 

reporter's arrival.  "Come in," Fudge called, arranging himself in a large, 

high-backed chair, its leather upholstery so slippery that he nearly slithered 

right off.  

And then she entered.  Or charged, rather.  

Fudge had been expecting a fresh-faced intern type; some flat-titted, simpering, 

gossip-bursting bird with a cheap Quick-Quotes-Quill in one hand and a jug of 

diet pumpkin juice in the other.  Someone rather like Marcy, perhaps.  Instead, 

he was faced with—

"Rhoda Rhodes," the woman barked, clipping towards his desk at an alarmingly 

swift pace—though how she managed it on six-inch stiletto heels was a wonder, 

indeed.  Her hair was a curtain of blinding peroxide blonde, one long coil 

lazily falling over her doe-like eyes in a decidedly Veronica Lake touch.  As 

she trotted over, Fudge felt beads of sweat announce themselves on his forehead. 

 The woman was outfitted in a Muggle-style dress suit so tight that it seemed 

shellacked onto her body, and the ample flesh of her bosom jiggled up and out of 

the low-cut jacket as she moved, her tiny waist pivoting below—surely too small 

to support such…er… _generous_ décolletage.

"Rhoda Rhodes, I said.  You deaf or somethin?" The woman thrust a hand out in 

front of Fudge's rather shocked face.  "Quit drawin flies and shake my hand 

awready!"  Dully, Fudge noted that she had a very strong, brusque American 

accent.  Tentative, he slowly held out his hand and nearly cried out when she 

crushed it into her own, shaking so heartily that it seemed his shoulder might 

wrench loose at the socket.  

"Pleasure to meetcha, Corny.  Got a problem if I call you Corny?  Good—didn't 

think so..."

_Corny?_  To his great displeasure, Fudge didn't have time to object as the woman 

barreled onward.

"So anyways, I'm here on behalf of _Witch Weekly to humbly request a _

Ministry-approved press pass into Azkaban so that we might interview Draco 

Malfoy, the playboy heir to the Malfoy fortune," she said, sitting her 

voluptuous rear on the edge of his desk, then crossed and re-crossed those 

endlessly long legs, tapping her sharp, talon-like fingernails in an uneven 

rhythm as she spoke.  

"What?"  Fudge sputtered.  "Press pass?  You're here for a press pass?"

"Hell-o!  That's what I just said, ain't it?  Dig the wax outta yer ears, Corny. 

 Yes, I need a stinkin press pass.  All the young—and not so young—Witches of 

Britain and Europe are dyin to hear what Mister Malfoy has to say about life in 

prison.  We've recently voted him "Most Eligible Inmate", which seems fair, 

seein as how he won "Best Smile" last year…" She paused for a moment, her 

enormous blue eyes watering as she looked off distantly.  "I can see it now.  A 

whole issue dedicated to Draco Malfoy…_the boy who was incarcerated for love!"_

"Here now," Fudge protested, finally rising to his feet.  "Draco Malfoy received 

a seven-year sentence in Azkaban for good reason--and he received a fair trial, 

mind you.  I'll be glad to have you know that I won't allow just anyone to waltz 

into Azkaban and treat him like a bloody celebrity!"

Rhoda Rhodes bounced to her feet—and bounce she did, causing Fudge's eyes to 

similarly pop in astonishment. "Now listen here, Mister Whoozie-Whatsit!" she 

said, her voice taking on a shrill note.  "Draco Malfoy already is a celebrity, 

like it or not.  And there are plenty of folks hopin mad that your Ministry had 

the balls to up and throw the book at him..."

_Throw the book at him?_

"AND…" she said, taking in a deep breath.  "If you want the public on your good 

side, Corny—which I think you do—then I suggest you not hide Britain's Most 

Eligible Inmate under a bushel."

"What are you implying?" Fudge asked, frowning. 

"What I mean…" She paused for another breath, and Fudge deepened his frown.  

"…Is that you and your compadres won't look so hot to the public if you don't 

start showing some Grade-A sympathy towards Mister Malfoy.  The wizarding world 

has already got ants in their pants over this You-Know-Who business, but reading 

about Draco Malfoy will give them something nice to think about.  Put a little 

shot of sunshine into their otherwise shit-on-a-stick days.  You catch my 

meaning here, Corny?"   

"Yes, Miss Rhodes, but—"

"No buts!" she huffed, and then quickly snatched a small object from her jacket 

pocket, thrusting it rudely in Fudge's direction.  "Unless you'd like to tell my 

wireless how Lucius Malfoy _really_ died."  

Fudge stared at the little magic recording device that she was fingering, and 

realized with slow, hazy submission that she might have very well been recording 

him from the moment she entered.   Hmm.  What a dilemma.  

"Very well," he finally said, and was surprised to see relief fill her hardened 

face, which was made up to mask-like perfection but struck him as eerily 

beautiful nonetheless.  She flipped a flaxen coil out of one long-lashed eye and 

smiled at him, her lips shiny and coral-coloured.  He doubted he would have 

refused her request, even if she hadn't threatened him with the wireless.  

Blonde cream pies were, after all, his favorite dessert. 

He fumbled through desk drawers until he found a press-pass, which he filled out 

to _Rhoda Rhodes, Columnist for "Witch Weekly", and quite happily handed it over. _

"Thanks a million, Corny!" she exclaimed, beaming at him.  "You won't be sorry."

"You're welcome, Miss Rhodes," he said, and felt compelled to place a hand on 

her heaving shoulder.  "And if you'd ever like to…ah…interview me, I'd be most 

happy to oblige.  I've always gotten along well with the American Ministry, as 

you probably know--always wanted to see America, actually…"  He trailed off, 

staring appreciatively into the inviting valley of her supple, decedent 

cleavage.  

Unexpectedly, her eyes narrowed.  "You want to see America, do you?  Well you 

won't find it down there, _Columbus!"_

He stepped back, eyes a-goggle.  "Pardon me?  I only meant that you're welcome 

here at the Ministry any time.  Any time at all, really."

"Yeah, I'll bet I am!" She snorted, looking quite livid as she pocketed her 

wireless and the prized press-pass.  "You can expect to see my mug around 

here…well, never!  _Adios_, Corny-boy.  Have a nice life."

And with that, she stomped out, oddly teetering a bit on her stilettos as she 

went.

***

On a cramped street, located just at the edge of an East London warehouse 

district, Rhoda Rhodes parked her tin-can convertible just outside a 

brick-fronted shop, the windows of which were so astonishingly dusty that a 

hand-lettered sign, reading _Crookshanks__' Private Investigations—No Job too _

_Small!,_ was barely legible through the wavy, aged glass.  Jamming the clutch 

until it made a rude noise, Rhoda finally pulled the parking break and hopped 

out of the vehicle, blonde tresses held back by a silk scarf, her expression 

unreadable behind a pair of dark sunglasses.  

Entering the shop sent a door-chime ringing: _Ching__-a-ling-a-ling!  Behaving as _

if she owned the place, Rhoda tossed her purse on a nearby desk, surveying the 

sparsely decorated room with her hands firmly anchored on her hips.  

"Coming!" A voice came, muffled by a thick curtain that fell over a doorway at 

the back of the room.  "Hang on, be right there!"

With that, Ron Weasley pushed through the curtain, absent-mindedly shuffling 

through several parchments as he did so.  "There now, what can I do for you?" he 

finally asked, looking up at Rhoda Rhodes. 

"Hey there buddy boy," Rhoda drawled, peering at him over her glasses.  

Ron jumped visibly, a leaf of parchment slipping from his fingers.  "Fuck 

almighty, Hermione!  Why in hell are you still tarted up like that?"

Hermione smiled, shaking the scarf and glasses loose.  "Just thought I might 

give you a fright.  Looks like I succeeded."  She bent over and hiked her 

already-short skirt up a little, pulling her wand from one garter and waving it 

at her stilettos, which abruptly shrank to a more reasonable, ankle-healthy 

height.  "Argh…feels just corking to shrink down these shoes," she muttered.

"You drove all the way home in those, then?" Ron asked, looking aghast.  "And 

dressed like that, too?  Please tell me you had the top up."

"There's no use in owning a convertible and driving around with the top up, 

Ron," she said, pulling a crumpled tissue from her pocket and swiping at her 

heavily-coloured lips.  "That's what you get for telling me to live a little."

"I think I told you that in our fifth year."  This delivered flatly. 

"See how much I treasure your advice!"  She reached out and gave his cheek a 

not-so-tender pinch, her heavy bosom shifting noticeably as she did so. 

"Erm…forgetting something there, aren't you?" Ron asked, pointing. "Or two 

somethings, I should say."

"Say, I almost forgot about those," Hermione remarked, staring down at her 

massive breasts in wonder.  "A fact which honestly frightens me a bit."  She 

delivered an anti-engorgement charm to all her temporarily enhanced assets, 

which left her sadly proportionate and in possession of a decidedly unremarkable 

English-girl behind.  But her dress fit loads better, enabling her to breathe 

normally.  The wig she left on, being rather fond of its honeyed, Sylph-like 

effect.  She had recently took inventory to discover that she owned more fake 

hair than Divine or Cher combined, a statistic which didn't disturb her nearly 

as much as she supposed it should.  

"Well?"  Ron asked, looking impatient.  "Are you going to tell me what happened, 

or should I wait for the _Daily Prophet's version of the events?"  _

"Keep your knickers on," Hermione said, proudly producing the Press Pass from 

her dress pocket.  "My research into Fudge was right on spot—a complete 

bombshell fetishist, especially fond of the domineering yank types.  But I had 

to give him a dose of the wireless, too.  Which worked beautifully, I might 

add."

A grin faintly played on Ron's features.  "So it worked, did it?  Fred and 

George will be happy to hear that."

"Tell them Rhoda Rhodes sends her regards," Hermione quipped.  "Now we can 

sashay right into Akaban, no questions asked.  Better yet, no illegal use of 

magic to alert the Auror brigade." 

Ron made a sour face, settling back into a rusty folding chair--one of the few 

pieces of furniture in the room.  "I find it amusing that you're so 

extraordinarily careful about using magic illegally, yet have no problem 

whatsoever when it comes to bilking the Minister of Magic with cheap disguises."

"Hey!" she protested, re-pocketing the Press Pass.  "Rhoda is not cheap.  This 

suit is Yves St. Laurent.  Second-hand, but still!"

"Okay, okay…" Ron held up his hands.  "You might want to keep Rhoda handy for a 

while, anyway.  We may need more than that Press Pass to get us into Azkaban."

"What?  Why's that?"

Ron frowned, re-shuffling through his pile of parchments.  "Dumbledore owled me 

this morning about those recent security changes that the Ministry has planned.  

Turns out they have at least three wizards working on the Island now—and that's 

in addition to the Dementors.  Anyway…the wizards aren't too fond of the Press, 

you might say, what with everyone being so nervous about the Ministry's 

continued use of Dementors in the first place.  Even Ministry-approved reporters 

have been turned away at the gates."  

"Well bugger that," Hermione complained, slumping onto a stool.  "Do we even 

know who's in charge?"

Ron shook his head.  "No.  But Andy should know."

"Andy!"  Hermione brightened considerably.  "Oh Andy, where would we be without 

you?"  She bounced off the stool, not waiting for Ron to follow as 

she made her way to the curtained doorway that led to the back room.  

While the front half of Crookshanks' Private Investigations served as a cover 

for Richard and Helen Crookshanks, Muggle investigators into the world of 

respectable suburban crime and intrigue, the back half revealed the real state 

of affairs:  Ron and Hermione's very own self-started spy ring—or that's how 

Hermione liked to think of it, anyway.  Ron, having not seen a Double-Oh-Seven 

flick until well into his teens, preferred to think of both of them as rogue 

Aurors, blatantly giving the Ministry the finger as they dealt with underhanded 

crime operations, per Dumbledore and the Order's command.  Ever since the close 

of their Fifth Year--after the Ministry had finally been forced into admitting 

that You-Know-Who was, indeed, back to full power--the Ministry had continued to 

flouder in half-truths, still bent on keeping the public in the dark for as long 

as they could.  

The back half of Crookshanks' revealed Hermione's and Ron's true devotion:  

Marauder-like moving maps of Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley were tacked up to a 

bulletin board, along with several important bits of parchment bearing 

Dumbledore's signature.  Two library tables were shoved together, creating a 

double-sized work station, and dozens of shelves groaned under the weight of 

Hermione's long-suffering book collection.  The real Crookshanks napped on a 

cushion under the window, and the only thing on Hermione's tidy library table, 

aside from quills and parchment, was a small, up-right cauldron.  

"Morning, Andy!"  Hermione called, and the cauldron bubbled in response, casting an umbra of 

faint, purplish smoke.  

"Mmmorning," the cauldron slurred.  Hermione sat down before it, smiling at the 

faint, shifting face that dappled across the cauldron's liquid surface.  

Shortly after Hermione left Hogwarts, the Ministry had come under attack for 

their antiquated modus operandi regarding Very Important Paperwork.  Still using 

disorderly file cabinets and flying Intredepartmental memos, the Ministry had 

finally quaked under pressure to install a more secure, Muggle-like computer 

system—a wizarding version of computers that would thankfully lack the messy and 

imprecise technology of chips, motherboards, and bandwiths.  Hermione, along 

with Arthur and the Weasley twins, had been instrumental in the development of 

the Compu-Cauldron prototype—a literal fountain of information that was designed 

on the same basic premise behind pensieves.  All of the old Ministry files were 

contained—along with the new—in a network of cauldrons that never left the 

Ministry headquarters.  Of course, Hermione had nicked the original prototype 

before she'd been kicked off the project (accused of snooping through the files, 

of all things—which was exactly what she had been doing, of course).  That was 

how she came to possess Andy. 

"What's your most recent file on Azkaban staffing, Andy?"  

The cauldron bubbled for a moment, as if thinking.  "Here it isss," he finally 

said, popping faintly.  "Admissssion date: Ten…One…Two-thousand."

_The date Draco Malfoy was sentenced, if my memory is still intact,_ Hermione 

thought, absently tugging at her faux locks. 

"The file is an owl mmmemo, Hermioneee.  From Corneilusss Fudge to the Dark 

Force Defenssse League."

Hermione nodded.  "Lets hear it."

"Dear Sirsss.  I have sent two additional Junior Ministersss of Security to aide 

in preventing further failings within the Azkabannn Security System.  As you 

know, our upcoming changes in Azkabannn security require that we keep a lid on things

—ssso to ssspeak—now more than ever.  I trussst you understand me.  Expect 

the arrival of Sean Barrett and your new senior, Arlan Brewssster, within the 

week.  Signed, Corneilusss Fudge, Minister of Magic."

"Arlan Brewster?"  Hermione paused, quite stumped.  She had never heard of the 

man.  "Andy, if the other network cauldrons aren't too busy right now, could you 

please ask them if they have any information on an 'Arlan Brewster'?  Personal 

tid-bits would be most useful."

Andy brewed silently for a few minutes as he conducted his search, then finally 

spoke up again:  "Cauldron 14H—who prefersss to be called Sheila—claimsss to 

have both heard and seen Mister Brewssster asking for the privledge of Missss 

Hannah Abbott's company on the evening of Seven…Nine…Two-thousand."  

Hannah Abbott?  Well, I guess that about sums up the bloke's taste in women.  

Looks like I'll at least get to keep blondie on for a bit longer, then.  

"What did Andy say?" Ron interrupted, peering through the curtain.  

"I'd best keep my head up for one Arlan Brewster.  Has a thing for Hannah Abbott 

types, if you can believe it."

"Good night!  Well, that ought to be easy, at least."

Hermione shot him a withering look.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ron rolled his eyes.  "Look, I know you fancy yourself a Rhoda Rhodes lifestyle, 

but underneath all the nylon hair and super-spy gadgets you're at least fifty 

percent Hannah Abbott.  If not more."

"If you didn't pay half the rent, I'd kick you out on your lousy backside for 

saying that," Hermione said, her face reddening.  "What say you borrow my wig 

and go try to flirt your six-foot-three freckled self into Azkaban?  Up to the 

task at all?"

Ron raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.  "Hey, I'm just here to dish out 

the back-up.  Be grateful that I'm easily satisfied by such menial tasks" he 

said, letting the curtain fall shut as he backed away.  

"Bastard," she muttered, shoving herself away from the table.

"I tend to agree, Hermioneee" Andy said, a bit of playful froth splashing up as 

he did so.

***

For the fifth time that day, Draco wondered if this was really what the Ministry 

had meant by "special conditions."  His prison room was half the size of the 

Manor's pantry, and contained nothing more than a narrow bed, small sink and 

commode, and a cramped writing desk.  Taking the dreary surroundings in, he 

sighed and faced Somae DeSilver, self-consciously running a hand through his 

uncharacteristically greasy hair.  

"Do any of the other prisoners have better rooms than me?" He asked, speaking 

loudly so his voice would travel through the magic field that separated them.  

"If there are better rooms in here I want to know, straight away."

Draco's fiancée raised a single, perfectly-groomed eyebrow.  "Darling, they 

didn't exactly offer the hospitality tour on my way in.  I have no idea what 

accommodations the other prisoners have."

"Somae, I'm going nutters in here," he said, pressing his face close to the field 

without actually touching it.  "You're literally the first person I've seen in 

weeks.  Weeks!  Not even a guard has walked by."

Frowning, Somae rearranged her position, running her pearly nails against the 

silk collar of her robes and then casually transferring her slick fall of black 

hair from one shoulder to the other.  "But who brings your food, Draco?  Do they 

send up a house-elf?"

"No." Draco gritted his teeth.  "When I said I hadn't seen a person in 

weeks…what I meant was that I haven't seen _anyone_ or _anything.  Three times a _

day my food magically appears over there," he said, pointing at the writing desk.  "But 

other than that…nothing."

"Hmm," Somae cooed thoughfully, her eyes lowered.  "I'll ask your mother to 

visit, if you like.  She's still quite depressed, but I think she'd manage the 

trip…if I told her you were feeling lonely, that is.  I think she should visit a 

day spa first.  She's neglecting herself…her hair has become so dry and 

brittle, Draco.  Not like yours, which frankly seems a little grease—"

"I don't need to hear your current assessment of my hair," Draco snapped, though 

was privately quite devastated to learn that he looked as bad as he felt.  "I 

need to know what the hell is going on in this place.  From the time I was a 

toddler I've heard tales of how fucking miserable Azkaban was, and how if I knew 

what was good for me I'd never allow myself to end up there.  And now I'm here 

and it's just…._bizarre.  There's no noise, no rustles or movements.  At night _

it's utterly dark and sometimes I lie in that shitty bed and think that the rest 

of the world must have just dropped away…"

"Drake, that's so depressing," Somae said, a frown marring her cool features.  

"I don't like the thought of you having such…_introspective thoughts.  Should I _

see if Daddy can do anything?"

Relief flooded Draco's body, and he allowed himself to slump forward a bit.  

"Please do…and right away, if you can.  I don't care if I have to stay in this 

room…I just want to see people again.  I'd even welcome the sight of a Dementor 

or two, seeing as how they'd at least be a reminder of why I'm here and who I 

bloody well am, at that."

Somae nodded quizzically, though to her credit he thought she was doing a pretty 

good job of appearing concerned—this despite the fact that she clearly had no 

idea what he was going through.  Across the wavering light of the security field 

that separated them, he admired her from afar….or from half a metre, anyway:  

the wordlessly gorgeous Somae DeSilver, twenty-four year old pureblood and 

heiress to the DeSilver Fortune—all of it garnered from long-dead Sullivan 

DeSilver's authentication of the first knuts, sickles, and galleons that made up 

the present Gringott's currency system.  Right now, in such times of 

uncertainty, he was glad she belonged to him.  _Must not say anything more._

_Cannot allow her to see me frantic and trembling and…greasy._

 __

"My time is up, Draco.  The portkey back to mainland leaves out in five minutes. 

 Oh darling, tell me you'll be all right," she pleaded, her hand floating 

towards him as if she were fighting the urge to touch his face.   

"I'll be fine," Draco lied, smiling while at the same time finding it rather odd 

that before this, he would have never lied about such things.  "Give my regards 

to Mum."

"Of course," Somae said, blowing a few airy kisses in his direction.  "I'll see 

you soon, love."

And then she was gone, leaving the horrible, oppressive silence behind her.  

Like an obscene plaything, it toyed with Draco's mind; shadows—which he had once 

been rather fond of, as they made good lurking places—now moved of their own 

accord, jumping from corners as if on marionette strings.  And even when thick 

beams of sunlight leaked in through his tiny window, he felt the silence pushing 

him.  Pushing him in some direction he didn't want to go in.

Later that night, when the Dementors finally did come to him, he would find 

himself wishing back that same silence—but this time saw it as a sweet, peaceful 

sanctuary.  A possibility of relief.

***

Hermione dropped the coveted press pass and clapped both hands over her mouth in 

an attempt to quell a fast-rising wave of nausea.  If there was one thing she 

could live without, it was portkeys and other such lurky-jerky conceptions of 

how travel should work.  Give her good old floo powder and apparition any day—or 

better yet, a fast car on the open road.  Preferably the Autobahn.  She could 

take the speed of flying provided it took place low to the ground and in an 

all-encompassing steel vehicle equipped with factory-approved safety belts.  

Flying through the air—or even the sensation of flying through air, as 

experienced via portkey—caused her stomach to twang like a twelve-foot 

rubberband. 

"You there!  This is a restricted area!"  Hermione jerked her head up and saw a 

very irritated looking wizard marching towards her.  She was standing in a 

clearing—apparently in the middle of nowhere—and the plethora of surrounding 

wards suggested that there probably wasn't a welcoming committee anywhere near 

by.  "Stop right there and state your business!"

_Glurt__?___

Hermione swallowed thickly and tried to compose herself, quickly snatching up 

the press pass and holding it out for the wizard to examine.  Up close, she saw 

that he was only a few years older than herself, though his set jaw, paired with 

a sprinkling of gray hair at his temples, suggested that he was taking his 

job—and life in general—far too seriously.

"A reporter?  We had dozens of your kind milling around up here right after the 

last big trial.  A little late to get the scoop, aren't you…" he squinted at the 

writing on the back of the pass.  "…Miss Rhodes."

Hermione stood up straight at the sound of her undercover name.  In the last 

twenty-four hours, Rhoda Rhodes had undergone a drastic make-under.  Now British 

rather than American, her blonde wig had been arranged into a rather childish 

pair of pigtails, and she wore a knee-length, navy pleated skirt and matching 

blouse, white stockings, and a ridiculous white and navy polka-dot tie, which 

flapped up into her face as a stiff breeze whistled through the clearing.  Her 

skin was free of makeup, and a pair of non-prescription glasses perched on the 

end of her pert nose in a rather no-nonsense fashion.  "I'm not particularly 

interested in a 'scoop', Mister….?" she prompted, looking him over in a prim 

manner.

"Brewster."

_Cha-ching!_

"Yes, Mister Brewster.  I'm here for an interview.  As you probably know, before 

his imprisonment Draco Malfoy was somewhat of a socialite-level celebrity 

amongst the readers at _Witch Weekly.  Women are keen to discover what Mister _

Malfoy has been up to ever since his incarceration, a fact which Cornelius Fudge 

duly recognizes.  This is why the Minister has agreed to let me conduct my 

interview, as you can see from that press pass you're holding."

Arlan Brewster squinted at the fine print, a thin frown etched on his face.  

Hermione did her best to smile benignly, though she had twice almost slipped 

into a Brooklyn accent as she spoke to him—shades of Rhoda trying to resurface.  

Finally, Arlan was studying her over the pass, taking in her pleading, 

fresh-off-the-dairy-farm expression.  "You don't look much like the other 

reporters I've met," he finally said, looking vaguely suspicious.  "They all own 

expensive handbags and never leave the house without a muzzled photographer 

walking five feet behind them."

From her vinyl purse she casually pulled out a Sure-shot Wizardmatic.  "I take 

my own photographs," she said, shrugging.  "I prefer to work alone." 

He slowly returned her smile.  "So do I—that's why I asked to be transferred to 

this Island in the first place."

_Of course, Brewster.__  I'm sure that you working on a prison __Island__ has nothing _

_to__ do with the fact that you clearly have little more social skill that a brown _

_paper__ bag.  _

"Well…it's rather peaceful here, isn't it?" Hermione said, looking around 

uncertainly.  Being quite far north, the trees on the Island were mostly naked, 

their branches scraping upwards in an eerie simulation of what looked like 

Dementor fingers.  She shivered a bit at this sight, wishing she'd thought to 

bring a jacket.

Brewster nodded, then reached out and tucked the press pass back into her palm.  

"Follow me," he said, and began to lead her a long way into the woods, pointing 

out the two-story cabin where he and two other wizards lived and worked, 

"because what with the Dementors and all, the Fortress itself isn't fit for any 

sort of human occupation.  Right depressing place, it is."

_Isn't fit for human occupation?  Yet plenty of humans live here, funnily _

_enough__._

Clearly not having had female company in some time, Brewster prattled on, now 

quite animated as he led Hermione towards the base of a steep cliff.  Hermione 

nodded at all the appropriate moments, a demure little smile pasted across her 

face.  

"See, I'm of the opinion that most reporters keep photographers on a leash 

because they can't stand the thought of not having someone around to listen to 

their ruddy malarkey…" 

"Pardon me, Mister Brewster," Hermione interrupted, her patience wearing thin.  

"Though I'm very much enjoying this nature walk, I'd really like to be taken 

straight to the fortress, if you don't mind.  My editor has assigned me a very 

strict deadline, you see…."

Brewster stopped and shot her a curious glance, then tilted his head and 

chuckled a little.  "Cor!  You really are green then, aren't you?  This _is_ the 

fortress, Miss Rhodes."  He gestured at the cliff, and Hermione felt her mouth 

drop open of its own volition.  Where was the big, weathered castle she'd been 

expecting?  Ignoring her stupidly awed expression, Brewster pressed both hands 

to the side of the cliff wall, keeping his eyes shut as he muttered quietly to 

himself.  Hermione felt the ground beneath her feet shudder slightly, and within 

a few seconds a deep crack appeared in the rock, the cliff further dividing 

itself until there was a six-foot tall fissure, just wide enough for a human to 

slip through.  

Hermione eyed the opening, feeling suddenly claustrophobic.  "The poor Dementors 

must have to crawl down on their knees in order to get through that door," she 

remarked, then cursed her ill-placed joke silently; this particular incarnation 

of Rhoda wasn't supposed to have a sense of humour.  She was supposed to be 

bland and studious.  A 'swell listener'.  _Which half of me already is, according _

_to__ Ron, she thought bitterly.  _

Brewster gave her a sharp look.  "The Dementors are no longer permitted to exit 

the Fortress unescorted," he said sharply, and, without asking her permission 

first, gently pushed her towards the cliff-opening.  It was pitch black inside, 

a fact that suddenly made Hermione want to ask Brewster if it was too late to be 

excused, or if she could please, pretty please be allowed to run to the toilet 

first.  She toddled forth reluctantly, and when the cliff walls slammed shut 

behind them a rush of cold air whipped up her skirt, causing pebble-sized 

goosebumps to surface down the length of her thighs.  She let out a breath, not 

realizing that she'd been holding it in the first place.

"_Lumos_," Brewster said, and torch light rose up around them, revealing that 

she'd been led into to some kind of ante-chamber.  In sharp contrast to the 

fortress' stony interior, this room was slick and modern, outfitted with chrome, 

steel, and sterile white walls.  

"Before you may see the prisoner, I must ask you to leave your purse and wand in 

one of these containment units," he said, very businesslike as he gestured to a 

row of lockers that were lined up against one wall.  "Anything else that you 

want to take into the fortress must be approved by me first."

Wordlessly, Hermione gave him her wand and purse, but not before first removing 

her camera, the wireless, and a small package of chocolate frogs.  Brewster 

studied the camera and the wireless for several minutes, tapping both objects 

with his wand a few times before handing them over.  "I've never seen a wireless 

recorder quite like that before," he remarked, "but since it's made by 

Wizardmatic, I'll let it slide this once."  

Hermione shook the bag of chocolates.  "Are these all right?"

He frowned.  "What…expecting that you'll get hungry in there?"

"No, but in order to have a sane, lucid conversation with Mister Malfoy, I 

thought these might be necessary," she said, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. 

 "Oh, right.  Yeah, the guard can give those to him for you," he said, and she 

winced at the thought of actually putting something in a Dementor's hand.  Then 

again—it really seemed a truly appropriate way in which to deliver a gift to 

someone like Malfoy.  

"Once you reach the cell you will have twenty minutes with the prisoner.  No 

more, no less.  I will be waiting in this room for your return, and if you are 

not here in twenty minutes I will summon the Dementors to remove you.  During 

your time with the prisoner a Dementor will remain in the hallway, though he is 

under strict instruction not to feed off you…."

_Feed? _

"…Now, to find Mister Malfoy you must follow the hallway outside this room clear 

down to the right.  When you reach the door at the very end, you've come to the 

right place.  Show the guard your pass at that time."

"Okay," Hermione wheezed, feeling as if steel bands were tightening around her 

chest.  With his wand Brewster unlocked a back door and shooed her through.  As 

soon as she crossed the threshold, he swept the door shut behind her, sending a 

jolt of numbing alarm down her spine.  For several minutes she didn't move, and 

instead stood foolishly at the mouth of the tunnel—knock-kneed and partially 

strangled by her silly camera (which didn't even have spellofilm in it), her 

wireless in one hand and a packet of fast-melting chocolate frogs in the other. 

Had she ever felt more vulnerable than she did right now?  She doubted it.  

_Wand.__  I want my wand, she thought, her mind bursting out the demand in the _

simple way that a child would.  Then she remembered…she wasn't completely 

without protection.  

Bending over, Hermione fished up her skirt and pulled a small blue pistol from 

the hostler around her upper thigh.  It was a Ladysmith .38, and—as with tampons 

and credit cards—she never left home without it.  Probably it was of little use 

against Dementors, but the mere act of wrapping her fingers around the cool 

blue steel helped her nerves and seemed to stop the frantic bucking that was 

going on just beneath the surface of her skin.  If there was real trouble, she 

supposed she could run through the tunnels of the fortress, shooting up the 

place.  Hitting a few prisoners might break up the Dementors' all-you-can-eat 

buffet, which would buy her some time, at least.  

But that was silly; Hermione Granger didn't go around hurting people.  It just wasn't her style. 

 Like cops on the telly, Hermione reached around and tucked the Ladysmith into 

the waistband of her skirt—saftey on, of course.   Then she took a few deep, 

cleansing breaths and began to march forward.     

***

It had begun with one Dementor.  Draco had been sitting at his desk, writing out 

a letter to his mother in a vain attempt to keep his mind busy.  Just when he'd 

been mid-sentence into a complaint about the lumpy texture of prison food, he'd 

heard a soft rustle behind him.  Turning at once, Draco had looked toward the 

noise almost hopefully, certain he'd be glad to see anything at that point.  

What he saw was a tall, cloaked figure that stayed in the shadows, and even 

though he couldn't see any eyes, Draco had the distinct feeling that the 

creature—a Dementor—was staring right back at him.  

_I want to see its eyes.  I don't like that I can't see its eyes_, he thought a 

few times over, dimly aware that a horrible icy feeling was coursing through his 

chest, spreading its fingers down through his limbs until he felt his 

prison-issue quill shake and finally drop from his fingers.

_Father!_

His father, tumbling down the stairs—those gray eyes that were so much like his 

own lashing out and holding him up in a wave of accusations.  

_Father, I didn't mean…_

But the image wouldn't leave him; over and over he saw his father falling, 

landing the same way each time, his neck wrenched at an un-natural angle.  Other 

faces filtered by; his mother, crying inconsolably.  And, oddly enough, he saw 

old Dumbledore sitting under the sorting hat, smiling at him in that usual 

benign way—though even that smile brought him little comfort now.  

Once the barrage of images faded and the Dementor left him to sleep, 

he found himself thinking vaguely of Harry Potter, that silly boy who'd 

lived—only to full-out disappear before the start of his seventh year.  

What had Potter seen in the presence of Dementors?  It must have 

been bad if it packed a wallop strong enough to make him up and faint. 

In the years since Hogwarts Draco had thought of Potter on occasion—mostly to 

wonder if the idiot had gotten himself killed yet—but these were the first 

thoughts he'd had of Potter that seemed….almost empathetic in nature.  

Unsurprisingly, they didn't do much to improve his mood.

Time.  How much had gone by?  The Dementors left him fully conscious for most of 

the daylight hours, but he used that time to eat and catch up on precious sleep. 

 Resting a hand to his cheek told him that he had, for the first time in his 

life, something close to resembling a beard.  Back in the real world, Draco had 

been in the habit of shaving only every other week or so—a practice that had 

allowed him to keep baby-fine skin and unblemished pores.  But he had been in 

here long enough to grow an actual, visible beard.  A month must have gone by, 

at least.  But the Dementors hadn't shown up until after the first two or three 

weeks.  

_But if they can do this to me in just over a week, what can they do to me in _

_seven__ years?  Or in just the next month, for that matter?     _

Now that it was nearing sunset, Draco perched on the low headboard of his tiny 

bed like some kind of owl, his head scanning the room for any sign of the 

Dementors' approach.  As soon as he heard them, he was in the habit of diving 

under the blankets and pulling them tight over his head.  He'd found it was 

usually better if he didn't have to see them, even if he could feel them out 

there, studying him with their blank, sightless faces.   

Draco heard a soft movement—a footstep, it sounded like.  Even though some part 

of his rational mind knew that Dementors didn't make footsteps, he plunged for 

the bedding anyway, throwing it over his body and muffling the fabric against 

his ears.  Now there was a new noise—a faint crackle and hum that he recognized 

as the sound of the invisible security field being activated.  He opened his 

eyes, though made no move to pull off his covers.  The Dementors didn't use the 

security field.  Why would they?  There was nothing he could do to hurt them, 

after all.  

"Malfoy?"

A female voice.  Not Somae's.  Not his Mother's.  

_"Come out, come out wherever you are!"_

He felt his ears twitch against his will.  The woman's voice was high-pitched 

and haughty in a way that struck him as disturbingly familiar.

"Are you scared of the bad Dementor?  Don't worry…Ugly is supposed 

to restrain himself for a few minutes so that we might chat in peace.  

Provided that you're willing to stop hiding under those dirty sheets long enough 

to chat…"

Now he knew who that voice belonged to.  Annoyed, he clawed at the blankets and 

then threw them off completely, silently cursing his miserable luck.  Once free 

of his bedding, he saw the woman at the other end of his cell, standing behind 

the field with her hands crossed over her chest self-importantly, a weird little 

half-smile playing on her features.  Even with the stupid sailor outfit and 

blonde hair, he knew her at once. 

It was that Potter-loving Mudblood, Hermione Granger. 

**************************************

A few acknowledgements:  Rhoda Rhodes comment to Fudge, 

"You won't find it down there, Columbus!", is from a  line of dialogue nicked directly from Russ Meyer's 

fabulous cult classic _Faster, Pussycat!  Kill! Kill!_  I only wish it were mine!     


	3. Chapter Two: Zippity-Doo-Dah!

**Faster, Mudblood!  Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter Two:  Zippity Doo Dah**

"Is that you, Granger?  My God…nightmares really do come true," Draco said, too busy glaring at Hermione to notice that he felt, for the moment, pretty good.  Not back to his usual self, of course, but it seemed that the Dementor had ceased its all-out, parasitic penetration of his exhausted mind, and he even felt well enough to grace Granger with the famous Malfoy lip-curl, a tactic that he suspected made him look at once both devilishly handsome and devastatingly wicked.

"Wow," Granger said, a look of alarm passing over her face as she squinted at him in the dim light.  "It's disturbing how much you haven't changed, Malfoy."

_Neither have you Granger…though that ensemble suggests you're making a go at a Brand New You…just like the telly's Mary Tyler Moore, it looks like you've gone and  made it after all—or you think you have, anyway.  Bravo for flopping miserably_.

When Draco had been seventeen, he'd seen Muggle television for the first time, viewing it with Somae at the DeSilver's winter home near Avignon.  While a proud, pureblood wizarding family, the DeSilver's were so ostentatiously rich that they felt compelled to buy the best and most luxurious items, whether they be Muggle or Wizard in origin.  No one seemed to actually watch the television, but once he'd demanded a demonstration Draco had been mesmerized for hours, using the weird, plastic wand to flip through literally hundreds of channels.  After several rounds, he'd finally stopped on a programme that featured a very peculiar sort of sport: men on horseback who raced around while trying to capture baby cows with a length of rope.  A 'Rodeo', the announcer had told him (a very rude announcer, who never said "you're welcome" when Draco thanked him for the bits of random information he provided).  At the time Draco had scoffed at the silly horse-men, who wasted so much effort when they could have easily caught the baby cows with a well-placed spell or two.  But after an hour or so of watching (Somae tutting in the background all the while, perfectly bored), he felt an odd sort of wonderment and admiration for the men, who let go the 'lasso' with a mere flick of their wrist, and from several metres away managed to rope up the cow, even while atop a mad, galloping stallion.

It was the first time Draco truly understood the meaning of the word 'skill', and he'd sulked for a while afterwards, realising that he would never be able to lasso up a baby cow—not without some kind of magic, anyway.  If there was one thing he did have a preternatural skill for, though, it was verbal sparring, and he comforted himself with this undisputed fact.  When he let loose an insult, Draco could almost see it as it whipped out to wrangle the horns of his target.  He took pride in this one, long-practised skill; treasured it, really.

And now Hermione Granger stood before him in a ridiculous Muggle outfit—with uneven blonde pigtails that reminded him oddly of Hannah Abbott—looking for all the world like a dumb, vulnerable baby cow….and Draco couldn't bring himself to insult her!  Not that dozens of particularly cruel blows weren't dancing on the tip of his tongue—they were there in droves, but he found himself simply too exhausted to deliver the goods.  He flopped back on his bed instead, blotting the light out with both of his hands.

"Malfoy?"  Her authoritative tone wavered a bit.  Good.  

"Despite all appearances to the contrary, I'm not here to have a go at your balls, Malfoy."

_Go fry ice, silly bint._

Even without voicing that particular insult, he relished her imagined reaction—how if he'd actually spoken out loud the insult would have darted out and smacked the Mudblood's pink cheeks, making them go pinker with anger and frus—THWAP!

He sputtered and sat up.  In the middle of his pleasant visualization, Granger had managed to throw something at him, and it had landed right on the tender protrusion of his adam's apple.  Before he even had time to feel astonishment, he plucked up the improvisatory missile and lobbed it back in her direction, not bothering to note what the object was.  It was a clean throw, but the thing hit the security field and bounced right off it, skidding across the floor towards him.

"Sorry Malfoy.  Only the guard can pass objects through the energy field—though I didn't realize he had such a precise sense of aim."  She smirked a bit, gesturing at the Dementor standing a few feet behind her.  Looking closely, he thought he saw a good deal of insecurity coursing under the surface of that smirk; she might be playing it cool, but the Dementor's gray, scabby presence was definitely getting to her.

Leaning forward with a deep sigh, Draco picked up the object and turned it over in his hands.  A squashed package of chocolate frogs.  How thoughtful.  

"Eat up," she supplied, coming closer and sitting down on a stool—presumably brought into the room by the Dementor, who seemed to possess a sense of hospitality after all.

"Why?" he pouted, though began to listlessly unpeel the cellophane off the treats even as he did so. 

"It'll give you a pick me up.  Trust me."

He glanced up sharply, studying her from a short distance.  She looked the same to him: same milk and water English colouring; same pinched expression of superiourity; he also suspected that beneath the blonde hair her same God-given brown, bushy mop was still thriving—most unfortunately.  What had changed was the singularity of her presence.  From what Draco could remember, he had never once seen her without a Potty or a Weasel attached to her hip.  Yet now she was here all alone, and apparently of her own volition.  Perhaps she wasn't here simply to plague him—she always had been a gormless do-gooder type, after all. 

"What do you want, Granger?" he finally asked, shoving a soggy frog under his tongue.  It began to melt at once, and to his surprise he felt the muscles around his ribcage relax a smidge, while his mind seemed to sharpen up just a bit.

"First off, Malfoy, let me assure you of one thing." She paused and gave him an odd smile—almost genuine, but not quite.  "I know the truth about you."

"Oh yeah?  And what's that?" he askly, dimly stuffing more chocolate into his mouth.

"You didn't kill your father."

Draco swallowed hard. 

***

So far, Hermione wasn't too keen on Azkaban.  Despite the fact that the Dementors were supposedly on order not to "feed" off her, she was feeling pretty well picked over.  Like a plate of olives with the pimentos popped out.  She was having some funny thoughts, too.  An ancient Disney song ran through her head at top speed, the vocals as high-pitched as a squirrel's on helium:

_Zippity__ doo day, zippity yay!  My oh my, what a wonderful day…_

"You didn't kill your father," she finally got out, then watched with no great surprise as Draco opened his eyes (previously closed in order to savor the candy, it seemed) and stared at her dumbly, the swell of his top lip adorned by a tiny smear of chocolate.

"I what?" he choked out, reeling forward.  "What did you say?"

_Plenty of sunshine, heading my way!  Zippity doo dah…_

"I said I know you didn't kill your father," she repeated, shutting her eyes briefly against what was fast becoming a headache.  When she opened them again, she was taken aback to see that—rather than the song's promised sunshine—Draco had sent a malevolent glare heading her way.  Not a glare of typical Malfoy arrogance and contempt, either.  Instead, his wan face was blotched with the creeping fingers of a red blush, making it appear as if both of his cheeks had been soundly slapped.

"And how in fucking hell might you know anything about that?"  Draco asked.  For someone who had looked as weak as a snowy-white kitten when she first walked in, he was fast gaining colour and attitude.  It suddenly seemed as if the temperature in the cell had upped by a few degrees.

_Mister Dementor on my shoulder…it's the truth!  It's actual!  Everything is satisfactual!_

She blanched and tried to shake the capering song from her head once and for all, feeling her wig go slightly askew as she did so.  Steadying herself, she said, "How do I know?  Because I've made it my business to know.  How do you think I got in here in the first place, anyway?"

He stared at her.  "How should I know?  Suck a fair bit of wank, maybe?

She stared back, realizing that he was entirely serious.  "Wrong in one, you pompous arse.  Though you're right in suspecting I'm not exactly here on legitimate business."

"Fair go," he said, settling down a bit.  "So you broke in here, did you?  Is this a last-minute, poorly hatched Gryffindor plan to break me out of the big house, then?"

Reading the not-at-all-veiled sarcasm in his voice, she let out a weary sigh.  "No one is going to break you out, Draco.  There's really no need.  Within a few days time you won't even be here anymore."

"Yeah, right.  Like I'm…." he trailed off, the full force of her words finally sinking in.  "I won't be here?  Have you been drinking bobotuber pus, Granger?  They gave me _seven years_, in case you've forgotten."

Now she had his undivided attention.   "A warning, Draco," she said, snapping her fingers.  "Probably the first and last you'll ever receive from me in your life, I might add."  She paused for a beat, allowing him time to interject.  When he said nothing, she smoothly went on.  "You might have noticed that the prison is currently understaffed.  There is supposed to be a guard at your door for every hour of the day, but your spunky mental health indicates that you haven't actually been under watch for very long.  Am I right?"

He frowned.  "So what?  Believe me, just having them here off and on is bad enough.  I'm downright pleased to hear there's a staff shortage.  Ecstatic, in fact."  Even so, he shuddered visibly, some of the heat draining from his cheeks.

"A staff shortage might be good for you, but it's a big steaming turd of a problem for the Ministry.  In late August three Dementors left Azkaban, all on the same day.  The same thing happened a month later in September.  If the pattern continues, three more 'mentors are going to migrate right around this Tuesday…and this after years of the Ministry swearing up and down that they finally have real control of the creatures.  So now they've been reduced to frantically shifting the guards around, leaving less-dangerous criminals such as yourself unwatched for long periods of time so that they still have enough security posts down by the lifers."  

"And this is bad news for me how, exactly?  See my face--?" he indicated, pointing.  "Still ecstatic up there."

"Fine, fine.  You're ecstatic," she said, growing impatient.  "But I think that will all change when the Ministry dumps you out on the streets of London…_sans magic and wand."_

Draco blinked.  "Huh?"

"That's right.  No more abracadabra for you.  The Ministry is desperate—up to their bums in seventeen different kinds of scandal—and now the Dementors seem to be abandoning us for the other side…again," she said, rather enjoying the fast-rising expression of concern that was over-taking his features.  "In order to neaten things up around here, the Ministry is going to start up a new incarceration program for non-dangerous criminals.  You're scheduled to be plopped down into London central this coming Sunday."

"They can't do that," Draco said, frowning.  "Even if they take away my wand, I can always get another one.  This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of."

Hermione shook her head, regarding him with something close to sympathy.  _Even though he deserves what's coming to him.  Mudblood indeed!  We'll see just how well he fairs amongst the good-for-nothing Mudbloods, won't we?  _

"It's not just your wand, Draco.  They are forcing you into exile.  The wizarding world will--quite literally--be invisible to you.  Just as it is to Muggles."

His mouth fell partway open, revealing his perfectly white, straight teeth.  "You're lying.  There's no way you could know all this, anyway.  So yes, you must be lying."

She sighed; this was all rather more difficult than she had imagined.  "No Malfoy, I'm not lying.  I'm here to offer you a degree of assistance—though I'm starting to think I'm dotty for doing so.  But once you've been forced into exile, you'll be in sore need of an ally, preferably one who knows the Muggle world.  And having said that, I'd like to offer my services.  For a price, of course."

"Money?" he guessed.  "Or more likely you're in need of a date for some hideous Muggle event?"

"Neither," she said, gritting her teeth against the casual way in which he was accepting his fate.  "I'm afraid your payment can't be specified until a later date."

He let out a thin snort.  "Then forget it."

"I thought you might say that, so at this point I might as well tell you the whole the truth…I'm an expatriate from the Ministry, Malfoy, and for the last two years I've been a private investigator, while at the same time working undercover as a spy—"

"What?  You've been _what?" His mouth flopped open again and, against all reason, he began to laugh uproariously.  High, gasping giggles erupted from his throat as he bent over and clutched his abdomen in an attempt to calm himself.  "Oh, that's just too priceless, Granger," he finally choked out.  "You…a spy.  Probably for batty old Dumbledore and his precious Order, right?  Ha-ha-ha…oh, that's just too rich!" _

"Shut up!"  She snapped, jumping up so fast that her stool fell over with a clatter.  "I am a spy, Malfoy.  I drive a convertible and everything!" 

He continued to giggle, shaking his head even as she tried to convince him.

"Look!" She announced, pulling the .38 Ladysmith from the waistband of her skirt and proudly holding it up to the light.  "Would bookworm Granger carry a gun if she weren't _seriously_ a spy?  Think about it!"

"I have thought about it, and I think you're seriously off your rocker," he said, breaking out into a fresh peel of laugher.

She shoved the .38 back into her skirt, forcefully calming herself.  Had she really expected Malfoy to do anything less than laugh?  Deep down, she supposed not.  In a way, she was almost gleeful that he was rejecting her.  Now she was under no obligation to help him—though in her mind she had already done more than enough by giving the git fair warning.  If his arrogance doomed him, so be it.  

"Very well," she finally said, standing up straight in a dignified sort of way.  "I've done all I can for you, Malfoy.  Good luck on Sunday."  And with these final words she allowed herself to give him a sideways grin.  But it wasn't enough to put a dent in his fully-restored confidence.  As she walked to the exit, he managed to sling one final stinger.

"Hey Granger…if you're really a spy, then why the hell are you wearing a sailor suit?"

She truly hoped and prayed that the Dementor would gnaw on his half-cracked mind for the next sixty-two hours.

***

"Eighty-Nine bottles o' mead on the wall!  Eighty-Nine bottles o' mead!  Take um down and pass em aroun'…Eighty-Seven bottles o' mead on the wall!"

Severus Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes, and did his best to bite back a swiftly-rising onslaught of profanity.  The dim candlelight and antiquated, fuss-free environs of the Leaky Cauldron suited him as well as any of Hogwarts' various dungeons, as did the maze-like collection of hallways and private rooms that provided quick sanctuary away from the hubbub and clamour of the pub's bustling first floor.  What did not suit him was the pub's regular clientele, and he was fast-regretting his decision to remain quartered near Diagon alley, rather than letting a room somewhere in London proper.

"You failed to mention bottle eighty-eight," he said as mildly as possible, though the source of his serenade—a round-cheeked older fellow with cottony white hair and the plush, reddish nose of an alcoholic—had launched too loudly into the next verse to even hear Snape's commentary. 

Only here for a week, and already Snape was beginning to miss his old life.  _How do I miss thee?  Let me count the ways....  Yes, much to his chagrin, he was beginning to think longingly of his time spent with runny-nosed moppets who splashed their potion mixtures most carelessly, all of them seeming to share a brain so deficient that he was often surprised that they didn't drool or slur their words when speaking.  As for the rest of the Hogwarts staff, many of them were, in his opinion, decidedly idiotic, but all of them were at least smart enough to allow him a wide berth.  And then there were, of course, the dungeons themselves.  Though perhaps not considered a pleasant place by many, he was given the run of them at Hogwarts, and while teaching was a bane to his innate potions skills, he had been blessed with ample time for his own research and laboratory experimentation.   _

_Blessed?  Let's watch our word choice.  Bad enough that I'm actually missing that dratty old pile of mouldering masonry…_

"Eighty five bottles o' mead on the wall!..." The drunken bard paused in mid-verse and placed a casual hand on Snape's shoulder, trying to force the ex-Potions Master into a back-and-forth sort of swaying.  "Join in, old chap!  Still got eighty-five bottles to go….let's hear you open up that fat gob and sing to the world!"  With those last words, the old drunk let a good amount of spittle fly out and patter against Snape's cheek, his sour breath foul enough to turn the most steady of stomachs.  Aggravated, Snape jerked away, trying to shrink further into the large cowl of his robe. 

A brooding man alone at a bar, hulking in black, drowning robes…_Does this lush not know a shady character when he sees one?_  At this bitter thought, Snape downed the rest of his brandy in one quick shot, slamming the snifter down on the bar.  Giving Tom, the barkeep, a sharp nod, he pulled his robes around him and rose from the barstool.  As per house rules, the consumption of alcohol was technically limited to the bar itself; if it were otherwise, Snape wouldn't need to set foot down here at all.  As it were, he had already requested that Tom send his meals up to his private room, and Tom, apparently being quite accustomed to shady characters, had given him no trouble for this.

Once he'd retreated to the sanctuary of his room, Snape tore free of his heavy outer robes, using the hem to blot away the perspiration that glazed his neck and shoulders.  The Minister of Magic's words drifted back to him:  Keep a low profile…if there's one thing we don't need, it's having the public know that an ex-Death Eater is working under us.  

Fudge's concept of "working", as it turned out, was better described as making Snape wait for Fudge to show up and order him around.  Such a task was demeaning enough, but the situation was further problematized by Fudge's apparent inability to issue any real commands.  So far Snape had been on order to: 1) Look out for anyone dodgy; 2) Eavesdrop on conversations; and 3) Wear heavy, itchy robes to disguise himself.  Snape had trouble seeing the point in any of these three orders, as just about everyone in and around Diagon Alley looked suspicious to him—especially those who smiled a great deal, or wore pastel-hued robes and matching bonnets.  As for eavesdropping on conversations, so far Snape had overheard two witches argue about what remedies could best sooth menstrual cramps, had witnessed several heated banters regarding Quidditch teams, and had been treated to more pub sing-a-longs that he cared to count.  Disguising himself seemed to figure in little, as he was hardly a recognisable face in the wizarding world.  He had, after all, spent the better part of these last fifteen years underground.

But the worst thing about all of this, by far, was that Snape had become something he loathed, something he had, never in his life, aspired to be:  A Ministry employee.  One who belonged to a group of complete inepts; an assemblage of uninspired, middle-of-the-road baby-makers, all of whom hailed the chief, the biggest inept of all:  Cornelius Fudge.  

Such was why Snape could not longer fully align himself with the Order, even if he was one of their loyal few; Dumbledore and his lot saw the Ministry as corrupt and underhanded, while Snape saw them as nothing more than utter dunderheads, but he had worked quite tolerably with those in the Order on and off for the last several years.  Snape endured his honourary role as a member of the Order because he privately found those involved to be reliably intelligent Witches and Wizards, and this despite their constant defense of silly Muggles.  The Muggle question was one he purposefully removed himself from, and though he sensed that Albus Dumbledore privately chastised him for this, any scoldings on the matter had thankfully gone unvoiced.  After all, Dumbledore alone had a very clear idea of why Snape had aligned himself with the Order in the first place, and it had been more for personal reasons then political ones.

Amidst these distracting thoughts of the Ministry, Snape could feel the three snifters of brandy working their magic on him.  Sighing, he plopped himself down into a rather dusty armchair and gazed into the fire, feeling….well, blank was the most appropriate word that came to mind.  

Severus Snape was bored.  

Not to say that his life at Hogwarts had been remotely exciting—it hadn't.  But it was predictable in a way that he found comfortable and familiar, even if he had felt a bit caged these past few years.  At some point he had actually become restless enough to start pacing the dungeons at night; the students bored him, and his own research seemed tired and done to death—a mere re-tread of the advanced discoveries he'd made in his younger years.  For one horrific month or so he had wondered if Harry Potter's absence and its shattering effect on the mission of the Order was the cause of his new-found boredom.  Much as he loathed the boy, his antics had always given him something to focus on.  Only a few years back Snape had spent many late nights "Potter-hunting", as he called it; for there really was nothing more satisfying that taking points from a foolish, ballsy Gryffindor—particularly if that Gryffindor was Potter or one of his two best friends: the big-haired Muggle and that clumsy, youngest Weasley boy.  

_I wonder where Potter is now?_  Snape thought lazily, staring into the bright orange blur of flames.  _Dead?  Somehow, he doubted it.  Most annoyingly, the boy led an improbably charmed life, managing to side-step fatal injury at every turn and corner; if he were dead, someone would have surely found out by now, and a grand funeral promenade would have been held right on the Ministry steps. _

Snape wondered which was worse: a living but missing-in-action Potter, or a dead and martyred Potter.  Both had their distinct disadvantages.  Since his disappearance, Harry Potter had—quite impossibly—become even more famous; not memorialised, just _famous_.  The _Daily Prophet_ was peppered with weekly prizes for the best "Potter sightings", and the WWN regularly featured prominent Diviners who made great show of speculating on the boy's whereabouts.  Snape's favourite theory was the one concocted by Sybill Trelawny herself, who claimed that Potter was a sushi chef on a Japanese whaling ship and traveled the globe desperately trying to outrun his fate, which was, of course, to experience certain death at You-Know-Who's hand.

_If I ever have the misfortune to lay eyes on him again, what kind of man will he have become?  It can't be much of one, if he's spent these last three years running._

Snape nodded at this thought, tipping back in his chair.  He found it was somewhat of an uneasy relief to be able to think of Harry Potter and not find himself breaking out in a hot, impatient sweat, or have his hands involuntarily curl into fists.  Appalled at the prospect of mellowing with age, he pinched his eyes shut tight, groaning inwardly.  

"Good grief, my man.  Just what is your problem?  You look like a constipated hippogriff."

Snape's eyes sprung open at the voice and he gave a strangled cry of surprise.  The stiff, unpleasant face of Cornelius Fudge was flickering inside the fire; the Minister of Magic, it seemed, had decided to pay Snape an unexpected visit. 

"You!—"  Snape stopped himself from calling the Minister a bumbling arsehole who walks like a man just in time.  "You…surprised me, Minister Fudge.  I was just…" he paused again, searching for the right word. "…woolgathering."

_Oh bloody hell, please tell me it's not come to this.  No, I cannot be diminished to the point of locking lips with the Minister's buttocks.  Please…let this not be my fate_.

"Well, then." Fudge's flame-dappled expression seemed to soften a bit.  "I guess even someone like you deserves a quiet Friday evening, eh?  Though I do hope you didn't waste away the entire day moping about like a bump on a log," he finished, frown returning.  

"I presume this is not a courtesy call," Snape said, crossing his legs in a businesslike fashion.  This pained him…it really did.  Facing the Minister in such a civil manner.

"Not in the least," Fudge said, shaking his head until all of his chins wobbled.  "As a matter of fact, I'm calling up to issue you a new assignment, Sevvy."

Snape blanched at the sound of his recently-acquired nickname, but kept his expression carefully neutral.  "I suppose it would do me little good to hope that this new assignment might allow me to finally leave the Leaky Cauldron?  I've begun to hear those bloody pub-songs in my dreams…."

Fudge frowned.  "Always did like a good pub song myself," he remarked, sniffing in an offended way.  "Good clean fun, that is." 

"As for my new assignment…?" Snape prompted, ignoring the Minister's affronted expression.

"Ah yes…well, it deals with one of your old students, actually.  Lucius Malfoy's son, Draco."  

"Draco?" Snape barked, leaning forward.  "Draco is in Azkaban for suspicious yet undetermined involvement in the mysterious death of a loved one.  There isn't much more to his story than that, is there?"  Snape certainly hoped not, though if there was one person he wasn't pleased with these days, it was Draco Malfoy.  The former Slytherin was the reason why Snape was now an indentured slave to the Ministry.  

_And after all I tired to do for the blond idiot._

And he had done a lot; or had tried to, anyway.  As the boy's former head of house, he had agreed to testify at Draco's trial; had even said all the right things: Yes, Draco was a dedicated student.  Yes, he was a dutiful son, with no reason whatsoever to harm his father.  Then the peroxided wonder, on the day of his sentencing, had been allowed to give the public his final words.  And they had been quite final indeed…for Snape, anyway.  

Snape could still see him up there on the stand, two Dementors flanking him like a pair of surly bookends.  His summer tan had faded to the colour of swiss cheese, and the Azkaban gray robes only sallowed him further.  He'd lost enough weight so that his handsome features stood out in sharp relief on his face, his gray eyes especially large and luminous as he addressed the audience, looking—for the first time in his life, Snape suspected—completely sincere.  He thanked the gathered crowd for allowing him the chance to defend himself, and hoped that even in his death, the public would not judge Lucius too harshly for having finally been revealed as a Death Eater.  Draco reminded them that not all Death Eaters were completely bad people, and that several of them had been very kind to him as a child—old Professor Snape, in particular.  

During Draco's speech, Snape had been seated in a top row, impatiently checking his pocket watch.  When his own name had tumbled from Draco's lips, all eyes had swiveled in his direction—Snape actually heard them pivot and pin him to the spot.  In all those eyes, he saw the same question reflected: _Death Eater?  A Death Eater, teaching at Hogwarts?_

Dumbledore, being….well, Dumbledore, had done his best to defend Snape's past.  He pointed to Snape's past fifteen years as a spy as evidence of his willingness to be rehabilitated.  To work along the side of light.  No good, the Ministry said.  If he wanted to make up for his past finagling by spying, he would be spying for the Ministry, _not Dumbledore, thank-you-very-much.  _

And shortly thereafter, Severus Snape, Ministry Slave, was born. 

"What is it you want me to do?" Snape asked Fudge, being the good little slave that he was.

"Well, a lot of this is top secret.  But…okay, well here we go…" Fudge paused, looking oddly nervous.  "We're piloting a new incarceration program for low-level criminals, and Draco is one of the first prisoners we plan to test our new program on."

"I see," Snape said, not seeing at all. 

"The new program will effectively banish Draco from the wizarding world in all its entirety.  He won't be able to see us, won't be able to perform magic, and won't be able to enter any wizarding locales.  His exile will last for a full seven years, after which he will be allowed to re-enter wizarding society."

"What?" Snape asked, dumbfounded.  "How is that even possible?"

Fudge looked uncomfortable, as if he had already revealed more than he felt Snape should know.  "Easier than you might think.  Variation on the Muggle-repellant charms we use on Diagon Alley and the like," he said gruffly.  

"But why exile him to the Muggles?" Snape asked, still not understanding.  Azkaban had been the wizarding prison of choice for the last several hundred years, and while Snape agreed that the Muggle world would make an unpleasant prison in its own right, why change things now?"

"There now, Sevvy!  Remember you place," Fudge ordered, his cheeks reddening.  "It's not your job to question Ministry operations.  You just do as you're told."

"But you haven't yet told me what it is I'm to do."  This through gritted teeth.

Fudge blinked.  "Oh.  Yes…right.  We need you to monitor Malfoy's activities in the coming weeks.  Once he's released, we need to keep an eye on him—make sure he doesn't break through to the wizarding world, find a wand he can use, that sort of thing."

Snape allowed a brief image of Draco, stumbling down a street full of Muggles, to play forth in his head, finding that the image wasn't entirely unsatisfying.  This brought forth a new question entirely, however; if Draco disappeared from Azkaban, people were sure to hear about it.  The press was always snooping around that place, hoping to find chinks in the prison's impenetrable armour.  "Sir, won't it look suspicious if Malfoy simply up and vanishes from Azkaban?" Snape asked.  "Even as an inmate, he's still a glamourous, society-climbing playboy.  The heir to the Malfoy fortune.  People—women, especially—will throw a fuss if he disappears."

"Ah.  Good thinking, Sevvy.  I've just taken care of that, as a matter of fact.  Sent a brilliant new reporter from _Witch Weekly out to see Malfoy earlier today.  An in-depth interview with our golden boy ought to keep the tabloid-readers satisfied--for a short time, anyway.  That reporter--Rhoda Rhodes was her name--yes, I do believe she might have fancied me…."_

"Minister," Snape prompted, clearing his throat lightly. 

 "Yes?  Oh…yes.  Let's see…as a Ministry employee, you will be given a spell that will allow you to locate Malfoy's presence.  Mind, this spell works two ways—meaning it will also reveal you to Malfoy.  So you best hide yourself carefully so as not to alarm him."

"Fine," Snape said, eager to end this conversation.  

Fudge appraised him silently for a moment, then finally said, "I see you've grown out that beard, just as I asked you."

"Yes," Snape said, reaching up to finger the rather sparse muddle of whiskers that covered his chin.  "What do you think?"

"I don't like it," Fudge said, drawing up shortly.  "I think you're better suited to a mustache.  Yes, a mustache and mutton-chop sideburns.  It's a classic look, don't you agree?"  At this, Fudge gave own mustache and sideburns an affectionate pat.

"Yes, classic," Snape said, biting his tongue.  In his own mind, he was already beginning to sharpen his razor.

***

When Hermione was dumped out near the bank of the Thames, she knew immediately that she was about to puke up her toenails.  It was just inevitable.  

_Do you face downhill or uphill? Against the wind or into it?  I can never remember_, she thought dully, clamping a hand over her mouth.  She made it to a tree and managed to lean against it for support, sweat rolling down her face as she dry-heaved over and over again.  It wasn't just the portkey-sickness that had her upchucking—it was everything that had happened in the last two hours.  The cavernous, worm-like tunnels of Azkaban; the horrible, gray wave of terror that she had felt when the Dementor guarding Draco had stepped out of the dark and placed a single, damp finger on the back of her neck.  She collapsed to her knees and buried her face in the cool grass for a few minutes, breathing in the scent of decayed leaves and wet earth.  It was a raw and pleasant smell.  

When she finally stood up and looked around, she realized she was only a dozen or so metres from her parked convertible.  Her Press Pass—which had doubled as a portkey—had disappeared from its station around her neck.  One time use only.  Not that she really minded.  Wobbling her way over to the car, she noticed that a few teenagers were watching her curiously from their perch atop a stack of wood pallets.  She had purposely parked in a sparsely-populated area, but had forgotten that this was a prime gathering spot for young criminal-minded types—most of them looking to deal their goods, in one way or another.  

_What are they looking at_?  Hermione glared at one of the boys, who stared back at her openly, a cigarette dangling between his lips.  _Ooh right.  They just saw me appear out of thin air.  Next time I should just portkey right out of Crookshanks'.   _

Perhaps it was because she was Muggle-born herself, but Hermione at times seemed to have difficulty  remembering that other Muggles didn't have an inkling about the existence of witches and wizards.  All her Muggle-born friends were witches and wizards, and she didn't have the innate distrust and suspicion of Muggles that Ron had—though even he could be forgetful at times.  Like his father, he had the bad habit of walking right up to Muggles and asking them where he could find a felly-tone.  That, combined with his new fascination for Muggle cinema, had almost transformed Ron into a bonafide Muggle himself.  He'd even learned to enjoy televised Football.  

Hermione waved casually at the wide-eyed teens and revved her engine—or tried to rev it, anyway.  The resulting noise was really more of a half-hearted sputter.  

Ten minutes later, her stomach now quite settled, she was stepping into 'Reflections', a decrepit piano bar that was the closest thing that she and Ron had to a neighbourhood pub.  Located four blocks from Crookshanks', Reflections was populated by retired men, for the most part—most of whom had worked desk jobs in their glory days.  The windows were blacked out, and the bar stocked exactly two brews on tap, plus five varieties of bourbon and scotch.  It was, in short, the sort of place where Ron and Hermione could meet up with no worry of running into anyone they knew—or anyone who might even _want_ to know them, for that matter.  

Squinting in the dim light, Hermione flashed a smile at Nova, the late afternoon lounge singer.  Nova herself was standing atop a makeshift stage, her red mouth opened wide, belting out the lyrics to "The Girl from Ipanema".  Her garish makeup and dyed black hair—styled into a stiff, Cleopatra-like bob—made it impossible to detect Nova's true age, but Hermione guessed she might be anywhere from fifty to seventy years old.  She always tried to leave Nova generous tips, and on a few occasions the aging songstress had finished her set and stumbled over to Hermione's side, her glass of bourbon sloshing.  She had patted Hermione on the hand and said_ such a lovely girl _before traipsing away, only to be quickly surrounded by three or four admiring males.   

The only male client not in love with Nova was Ron, who currently had his eyes glued to the bar-mounted television, predicting the outcome of a West Ham football game.  

"FUCK ALMIGHTY!  Red card, you piece o' shit.  Sack that keeper!" Ron shouted as Hermione made her approach, his face red above his half-drained pint glass. 

"_Keeper_ down," she hissed, pushing her thumb into the small of his back.  "We're undercover here.  Remember, _Richard_?" 

"Oy!.  There you are, _Helen," Ron said, belching lightly against the back of his hand.  "I've been here for almost an hour with nothing to do but get knackered."_

"So I smell." Hermione made a face and waved at the air.  "Dewers and soda, Ralphy," she called to the barkeep, holding up two fingers.  

"Drinking?  You?" Ron mused, staring at her through bleary eyes.  "Azka—I mean, that place must be even worse that it is in my nightmares, if it's enough to drive you to the bottle."

"You're more right than you know," Hermione said, taking a cautious sip of the scotch.  "In fact, consider me a drinking woman from here on out."  With that, she slammed the rest of the drink down, nearly choking mid-swallow.

Ron searched her puckered expression, seeming to sober a bit.  "That bad, yes?"

"Awful.  And I only came face to face with one 'mentor," she said, shuddering visably.  "And can you believe Malfoy was in typical form?  Cracking wise…curling his lip up so far up you'd think he had a line of grade-A Columbian charlie laid out on it."

"Charlie?" Ron asked, looking puzzled.  "He's in Romania, not Columbia."

"Nevermind.  It's a Muggle thing."  Hermione sighed heavily, signaling Ralphy to refill her glass.

"Hey," Ron said, shaking her by the wrist.  "I have just the thing to cheer you up."

"Does this outfit make me look like a sailor?" she asked abruptly, yanking her wrist away.

"Well…" He lingered, studying her blouse and foppish tie.  "The navy and white does add a nautical touch, you might say."

"Oh, bugger off."  She drained her second glass with a grimace.

"I'm serious, _Helen,_" Ron said, shoving his large hand into his jacket pocket and rummaging through it.  "Look what came in the post today."  From his overstuffed pocket he produced a silver wristwatch and shook it between two fingers, his grin wide.  

"Is that…?"

"You got it," he said, unclasping the watch and sliding it over her wrist.  She stared into its domed face; a perfectly ordinary wristwatch, except perhaps for the odd, silvery substance fizzing just behind the crystal face.  

"Andy?" She whispered, her tone experimental.  She watched intently as the liquid inside the watch-face swirled, certain she saw an eye wink out at her just before the silver beaded together, spelling out individual words.

_H e l l o   H e r m i o n e…_

"Eeeh!" She shrilled, clapping her hand over her mouth.  "It works!  Oh sweet Merlin it bloody works!"

"Shut it!" Ron hissed, giving her a sharp jab in the ribs.  Hermione swallowed her shout of joy and bounced lightly at the knees.  What she held in her hand was one of a kind—the first of its kind, as a matter of fact.  _I could just kiss you, Fred and George_, she thought hazily, planting a kiss on Ron's ruddy cheek instead.  He groaned a made great show of scrubbing her affection away, but his eyes were glossy with unspoken pleasure.  

_Compu__-Watch; yes, the first of its kind, indeed.  Hermione and the Weasleys had worked out a successful system, it seemed.  As with the Compu-Cauldrons, the watch had been designed via a four-prong process.  Hermione researched and spent several hours perfecting the spell that enabled the object to work at all, Ron had sketched out the basic design, and Fred and George had assembled the final product from the notes that Hermione and Ron had provided.  Now, both she and Ron would have direct, twenty-four hour access to Andy and the wealth of information he provided—even when on the go._

As if in response to her thoughts, the watch on her wrist tightened slightly.

_Y a y !_

She stifled a laugh, holding the watch out for Ron to read.  "Cauldron think's he's got a fucking sense of humour," Ron groaned, grinning just the same.

"Oh."  Hermione straightened up, her giggles draining away.  "I forgot to tell you that Draco turned down my offer.  Didn't even want to hear me out, really."

Ron shrugged, seeming unconcerned. "Feh…let the fucker wander through Picadilly Circus, I say.  I hope a biker gang happens on him and makes him their gimp-baby."

"Tempting as that may be, you know we just _can't," Hermione said, wringing her hands together helplessly.  "Dumbledore is certain that someone with inside connections has copped a deal with Voldemort.  The old scab needs Draco for something, and I doubt it's for his stellar fashion advice."_

"So you still want to track him down then, I take it," Ron said, giving her a hard stare.  

"We have to!  It's on Dumbledore's orders…"

Ron snorted.  "Dumbledore has never given an order in his life.  He's just good at making people believe that he shells out commands."

Hermione shrugged weakly, her enthusiasm over the new Compu-watch almost completely sapped by now.  "The Ministry is going to have at least a few Aurors trailing Malfoy on Monday.  Ask Andy who they are—they should have possession of the charm that tunes into Malfoy's presence.  All I need is that charm and Malfoy is mine."

"Uh…" Ron swallowed hard, hesitating.  "Andy already gave me the necessary details."

"Oh?  And how many Aurors have been assigned Malfoy-watching?  Four?"

"One."

Hermione blinked.  "Only one?  Really?  Who is he?  Or she, for that matter."

"You're not going to like it…" Ron shook his head vaguely, averting his eyes.  

"Just tell me already!  It isn't Dawlish or some other equally impossible Fudge-lover, is it?"

Ron shook his head again, then closed his eyes and tipped back, draining the rest of his beer into his throat.  He coughed once and finally spoke.  

"It isn't exactly an Auror.  It's…Professor Snape."

******************************************

Thanks to all the lovely readers who reviewed this, on Schnoogle, WIKTT, and elsewhere:  Lozzie, Helene, Tein Riu, Severely Snaped, JessicaCMalfoy, MissCora, Salazar Stewart, Lillith, Cheerdancr89, JSawyer, SaintGemini, Supermouse35, Bellemaine, VenusDeMilo, Unregistered#1, Shinigami Black Yuy, Weird Cowgirl, Ashura, Tinadoll, Akele, Wolf of Solitude…. Your support means a great deal to me.

"Zippity Doo Dah" is from the Disney movie Song of the South.  I don't know who gets credit for writing "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall"—but I'm of the opinion that whoever put that little gem to paper should be beaten in public. =D


	4. Chapter Three: Last Meals

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter Three: Last Meals**

Hermione hadn't visited the Leaky Cauldron much in the last three years. Once she turned eighteen, mail-order catalogues had kept her personal stores in check--and good thing, seeing as how browsing the shops located in wizarding hot-spots like Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade only served to unearth painful memories. At times she missed the luxury of being able to bury both hands into a bin of frogspawn, or to sit in a sunny patch outside of Flortescue's, sipping on an ice cream soda while pinning though a newly-purchased spell book. But facts were facts: in such heavily populated areas she was more likely to run into old school chums, and very often the first words she'd be greeted with were, "Oh yes, you were Harry Potter's friend, weren't you? I suspect you know what's _really _happened to him, right? Oh, come now...you can tell me!"

_I don't know where Harry is. I don't know why he left or where he's gone to._

Hermione hated not having the answers; to look a person in the face and admit cluelessness was not in her nature, and to be put in such a position filled her with hot humiliation and shame. These emotions only doubled when it came to admitting she had no clue about Harry.

_Because Harry left and didn't think you important enough to be let in on the truth? Perhaps he didn't even trust you with the truth?_

She could have kicked herself for being such a blasted know-it-all, such an insufferable, interfering youth. If she hadn't sent Harry's Firebolt off for inspection, might he have trusted her? If she had broken a few more rules, would she have garnered his trust then?

If Hermione had been hurt by Harry's departure, Ron had simply been angry. He was like that; not a man of subtle, complex emotions, but a man who felt emotions on a singular basis, and in heady, potent quantities. He was a man quick to put his fist through a wall--even if it was the stone-hewn wall of the Gryffindor common room. Hermione had visited him in the hospital wing, had laughed nervously at the sausage-sized swells of his broken fingers, and it was there that they had kissed for the first time. Not a tender, romantic kiss, but a kiss of the desperate and dying--two people clinging to each other to keep out the cold, to keep themselves afloat. Harry's absence was like that of a missing limb; both could feel him tingling between them, silent in the wake of his absence, and only by pressing their bodies together could they banish his ghost from their side.

Their romance--if that's what you wanted to call it--didn't last long.

For most of her seventh year, Hermione had found herself standing in the middle of the front courtyard, her winter cloak trailing behind her as she looked up to search the sky for Hedwig's familiar outline....hoping, always hoping, that she would catch wind of Harry. She threw herself into her studies, naturally, but ate very little and slept a great deal, the dark circles beneath her eyes expanding until the face in her mirror no longer reminded her of herself. Eventually, she and Ron found that their trysts offered only uneasy solace; alone, they could forget their past lives as one-third of an infamous trio, but together it seemed they were forever trying to squeeze a third person out of themselves, trying to re-create Harry in all the wrong ways.  Finally, they slipped away from each other completely--not having it out in a row, as they would have any other time, but reverting to the creatures they might have been, had they not befriended Harry Potter.

Harry's disappearance had changed other things, as well.  The Order, which had been struggling to stay afloat since Sirius' death, seemed to dissolve almost entirely; their goal had been to protect and prepare Harry, the one who was prophesised to kill Voldemort.  With Harry gone and others dead—Sirius, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Tonks—the Order's purpose was no longer so absorbing and specific.  

She didn't speak to Ron again until she'd been out of school for five months. It was around that time that Arthur Weasley had approached her to come on board for Compu-cauldron project, per the twin's recommendation. If she had known she would be working with Ron, she probably would have declined, knowing that the silence between them would be too much to bear. But, clueless once again, she had entered the Ministry building with a smile plastered across her face--her first real job!--only to find Ron in Arthur Weasley's office, tipped back in a chair with his eyes shut, and stupidly drumming out an uneven tune on a copper cauldron bottom.

"You've got shit for rhythm," she had blurted out, surprising herself. But it had been enough; Ron had nearly fallen over in astonishment, catching himself at the last minute. Their eyes locked, and in that moment Hermione realized that they were both new people. She found herself wondering if this was always the case when loved ones vanish.  _Do their traces simply disappear into us, their memories germinating inside our own, growing and changing until we no longer recognize the person we once were? _

Before, they had come together out of pain; later, they reunited with a common goal: find Harry.

The peeling sign for the Leaky Cauldron squeaked in the wind and Hermione frowned at it, somehow certain that Diagon Alley was the last place she'd find Harry. If he had run from Hogwarts, then certainly he had run from the rest of the wizarding world. No matter; she wasn't here for Harry. She was here to come face to face with one of her least favorite people--Professor Severus Snape. Why was it that each syllable of that name needed to be verbally snipped off in order to maintain proper pronunciation? To have such a name must be like always aiming a pair of shiny, very sharp scissors at the rest of the world.

Though she had grown to dislike wizarding robes, Hermione had come to the decision that it would be best to blend in with the Leaky Cauldron's regular clientele; in light of this, she had donned emerald green robes reminiscent of Professor McGonagall's before finally apparating into the heart of Diagon Alley. She had replaced the favored blonde wig with a more serviceable auburn one, binding the faux hair up in a loose bun and completing the look with the same spectacles she had worn out to Azkaban. In all, her appearance was only a shade off from what her fourteen-year old self had envisioned; as a youth Hermione had always foreseen herself as a scholarly adult--one who worked in teaching and research, who would maybe marry and have children _only _if she found a man who could cook his own dinner, who was willing to stay at home while she spent late nights at the lab, making one great discovery after another.

Funny how the future seemed to appreciate irony; Hermione _had_ made great discoveries a-plenty--Andy and the Compu-Watch being only two of the more impressive ones--and had yet to receive the credit and payment that was owed her. The wizarding-home version of Compu-Cauldrons was in its final stage of development, and if the Ministry hadn't fired her for _interfering _with their political espionage, she would have been the witching version of Bill Gates by now.

Good thing she had an espionage ring of her own. Well... sort of.

With her carpetbag full of tricks, she entered the pub and made her way up to the counter, trying to gracefully dodge Mundugus Fletcher (who shot her a quick wink) and another man who were swaying back and forth, singing at the top of their lungs. Tom, the innkeeper, gazed at her disinterestedly as she made her approach.

"What kin I do fer ya?" He asked, taking a long drag from an ivory pipe.

"I'd like a room," she said, giving him a shy smile, her voice altered slightly so that she had a lilting, Irish accent. "For the next two nights, if you please."

"Aye. What name do ya want th' room under?"

"Arabella Pince." She thought fast, still smiling stupidly. "Might I ask a favor of you, sir?"

Tom glanced up in surprise, as if he weren't often asked to consider favors. "Aye?"

Well..." Hermione let out a childish giggle, tracing a circle on the floorboards with the toe of her boot. "I'm new to London, sir. I'd like a room near someone who might keep me company. An older man, p'haps....Someone tall and brooding? A man of letters, if you know one."

Tom squinted at her carefully for a few seconds. "There's one 'at might do ya... though he's known ta 'ave a temper."

"Oh! Just like Heathcliff!" she breathed, widening her eyes until it hurt.

"Who?" Tom frowned slightly. "I'll give ya th' room next ta th' professor. Mind that ya don't bother him now that it's past suppertime, lassie."

"Of course not!" Hermione shook her head vigourously. "Thank you so much for your kindess, sir."

She handed her carpetbag over to Tom and followed him up a dim stairwell; the hallway on the second floor was low and cramped, but she was soon ushered into a reasonably comfortable private room, in which a fire was already burning merrily. _House-elves_, she thought, frowning. With all the magic they could perform, she thought wizards would have learned to light their own damn fires by now.

Once she'd bid Tom goodnight, she began to unpack her bag. Inside, she had stowed away a set of real clothes, her .38 Ladysmith, the wireless, a small tool kit, and a leather pouch of miscellaneous odds and ends. She was already wearing her new Compu-Watch, and into it she said: "Andy, tell Ron I've managed to get a room right next to Snape."

A few minutes later, the watch tightened, and behind the crystal words began to form.

_R o n s a y s h e h o p e s y o u a r e h a v i n g f u n_

"Bastard," she muttered. Ron—along with the rest of his siblings—was at the Burrow for the weekend, and was probably too busy mucking about with Fred and George to even care that she was currently positioned only a wall-thickness away from their least favorite Hogwarts professor. Yet another curious aspect to their working relationship was that Hermione, more often than not, was the one to actually snoop around undercover, while Ron preferred to work from their home base, conducting research and fielding leads. A reversal of their school-day roles, perhaps, but Hermione thought it not at all strange considering that it was she who, in the tender youth of their second year, had brewed up a dangerous polyjuice potion so that the three might infiltrate the Slytherin common-room. How was _she_ to have known that Millicent Bullstrode owned a cat?

Even if she did fudge up from time to time, Hermione only trusted herself to get any job done right. And at this thought, she pulled a chair up to the south wall. There was a window over her bed, suggesting that her room was at the end of the hall; this meant that that Snape's room must be just beyond the wall with the fireplace. Retriving a small, hand-crank bit and drill from her tool kit, she mounted the chair and positioned the bit at eye-level. She paused for a moment, wondering if Snape was in his room and, if so, what he was doing. If he happened to be staring at this wall, loose flecks of plaster might well alert him to the fact someone was looking in on him. Surely even someone like Snape didn't sit around all day staring at walls, though, and with only a small amount of reservation, she began to crank the drill, driving the bit in at a downward angle.

Once she'd made a small hole, Hermione brushed it clean and put her eye to it. The room was small enough to view almost entirely, and upon seeing Snape's scowling face--situated only a few metres across and below her own--she let out a faint squeak and pulled away, clapping a hand over her mouth. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but knowing that Snape scowled even in private left her curiously troubled. Even though he'd hurt her feelings countless times as a child—mostly because he refused to acknowledge all her back-breaking hard work—his dedication to the Order had always given her hope that his unpleasant behavior had been part of a grand charade. A well-crafted act in which he unceremoniously crushed student egos left and right, and then sat down with a smile at the end of the day, congratulating himself on his ability to keep the student population on their toes.

Clearly, this wasn't the case. If anything, he looked far more disagreeable than she remembered. Putting her eye back to the peep-hole, she saw that he was slumped in an armchair and staring into the fire, his expression both irate and bored at once. In his left hand he clutched a half-empty bottle of brandy (_against house rules_, she noted), while his right hand idly scratched at a rather new growth of beard. His robes were shabby and unwashed, and it looked as if he hadn't had a good meal in weeks.

_Oh, who cares? So he's depressed. He's been the cause of much student-related depression himself, after all...In the words of the infamous Trelawny: Karma is a bitch, innit? _

Hermione lowered herself from the chair, realising that Snape wasn't about to move from his brandy-swilling position any time soon. In addition, she suspected that keeping her eye plastered to the wall all night would result in over-whelming neck crampage; checks every fifteen minutes or so would have to suffice.

On tip-toe (this despite the fact that this was an Inn, and that it was perfectly natural for Snape to hear sounds from the adjoining room), Hermione went back to the bed and riffled through her leather pouch of odds and ends. From an interior, zippered pocket, she retrieved a small hearing aid--a variety easily purchased at any corner pharmacy, but charmed so that it would amplify sound from a very specific locale, and more reliably than an Extendable Ear, at that.  Prodding the hearing aid with her wand, Hermione fiddled with it until the charm was just right: she should now be able to hear all sounds from Snape's room as clearly as she would were she sitting right beside him. After wrenching the small, plastic capsule in her ear, she sat back on the bed and began to listen.

At first she heard nothing out of the ordinary; the overlapping crackle of their two separate fires was an odd thing to experience, but within a few minutes she adjusted to it. Snape's fire, she noted, was decidedly of a more 'roarish' quality than her own. _He must stoke the wood until the flames suit his temper_, she mused.

Temper or not, Hermione found it difficult to erase the dejected image of Snape slumped over in an armchair, his fist curled around a smeary bottle of liquor. Part of her didn't want to believe that such a stony individual was capable of lapsing into depression; it made her consider him as...well...halfway human--this despite the many degrading moments she had suffered under his tutelage. And to think, of all the Gryffindors, she alone had been the one to give Professor Snape the benefit of the doubt, time and time again. _So Snape's being an arsehole again, Harry? Well maybe it's just for your own good.  So Snape made you burst into big crocodile tears again, Neville? Well maybe if I just help you catch up on swelling solutions, he'll be nicer to you. _

Such an unhealthy trust in authority she'd had in those days--thank goodness she'd outgrown _that_.

When had that trust first wavered?  If the Imposter Moody and Dolores Umbridge had dealt the final blow to Hermione's rather blind trust in authority, she supposed it might have been given it's first good shake by Snape himself.  It had been agonizing to watch the Potions Master praise the half-baked work of someone like Draco Malfoy, only to turn his nose up at her own perfectly brewed potions, refusing to acknowledge her attention to detail, her eagerness to prove that she loved 'the subtle simmering' of a cauldron just as much as he did. Most of her fellow students had been perfectly content to have Snape ignore their work--it meant that they were, at the very least, coasting just beneath his sarcasma-radar, and probably pulling off passing marks in the process. But in those days, to ignore the academic work of Hermione Granger was to outright insult the basis of her very moral fibre, the verbal equivalent of which would be, _You, my dear, are a worthless little witch._

Oddly enough, Hermione's eventual distaste for Professor Snape hadn't been accrued through his refusal to praise her scholarly talent; no, _that_ little denouement had presented itself in one of the more cruel pranks she'd ever endured, followed by the single-most heartless words she'd ever heard from a teacher's mouth:

_"I see no difference."_

Walrus tusks so long she was practically _tripping _over them, and yet he had the nerve to scowl at her, to actually bring stinging tears to her eyes.

It was about that time that she'd stopped defending him so much. It didn't matter what he was—former Death Eater, spy for the Order, Potions Master, or all around grouch—she didn't much like it.

Considering this, Hermione sank back into the scratchy pillows, realizing that the sound of Snape's fire and her own, mingling to create a strange, muted cacophony, was a sound that had a lapping quality, like surf teasing along a shoreline. In that hypnotic warmth Hermione felt her eyelids grow heavy, felt it rocking her into something close to--but not quite--comfort.

***

Draco was dreaming: this alone was a rarity, as in the last few weeks the presence of the Dementor hadn't really allowed his sleeping mind the freedom to dream. But here was a dream as big as life, in which he strolled along the harbors of Villefranche-sur-Mer, catching a whiff of sea air as he craned his neck, hoping to glimpse the cerulean waters of the Mediterranean. The entire scene could have been a picture-postcard from his summer spent in Cote de A'zur, the French Riviera, where the wide Bay of Angels was any young couple's playground. Draco had spent those two months longing to live on the water, and this despite the fact that Somae preferred the posh shops and museums found on the Promenade des Anglais. Draco tolerated nosing with high society--to do so was practically his birthright, after all--but high society Muggles made him nervous, with their shiny autos and tiny lap dogs. Still, he had endured the Promenade for Somae's sake, even while the salty sea breeze teased him closer, beckoning like a harem girl.

But in his dream he marched down one of those steep, stone staircases that led directly to the water, and there he found Somae, her hair loose and wind-tousled, outfitted in a dress that displayed her bronzed shoulders. He looked past her and into the waves, loving the clear blue that he could almost see through, accepting it as a sign that the Mediterranean kept no secrets--everything was right there, on display at the bottom.

"Would you do anything for me?" Dream-Somae asked, and her limpid eyes seemed to loot his own for an answer.

"Yes," Draco said, smiling and assured.

"Because you love me, right?"

Draco blinked. His mouth worked soundlessly, but he couldn't speak.

With that, Draco's eyes opened at once. It seemed as though he hadn't been dreaming at all, seeing as how he and Somae had exchanged those very words in the last week of their stay at Cote de A'zur. He didn't even really remember what Somae had been asking him to do, but he'd said 'yes' right away. Yet when she asked him about love, Draco hadn't been able to answer Somae, just as he hadn't been able to in the dream; he'd merely stared at her, watching her pale eyes tear over as his own throat hitched, trying to let loose a reasonable answer.

The truth was, he had said 'yes' to Somae out of loyalty, not love. But how could he tell her that? In his own way, Draco was innately obedient; he had always followed the guidelines issued by his father because Malfoys were loyal to Malfoys, above all others. Draco loved sailing because his father loved sailing; it was a tradition dating back to the time when Malfoys had actually lived along the Provencal coast of France. Draco wore well-tailored robes because it was a habit his mother approved of, just as she approved when he kept his hair a little bit long--just enough so she could reach out easily and brush it away from his face, as if she were picturing the _daughter_ she'd always wanted. In the spirit of this loyalty, Draco had smiled on the day that Somae was introduced as his betrothed. The DeSilver heiress: Draco had been presented with her on his seventeenth birthday--a twenty year-old beauty was a rather untraditional present, but he hadn't complained. The DeSilver-Malfoy marriage would be the grandest pureblood affair of the last twenty years, and to live through it would take loyalty of the highest echelon. If that wasn't love, Draco didn't know what love was.

He did _care_ about Somae; she'd been his stalwart companion for the last three or so years, after all. But there were rare, very brief moments when, as he gazed into a particularly clear body of water, he wondered  if he should have gone searching for something else, something that he could earn on his own merits, rather than having it presented to him on a silver platter by his mother or father. Then again, why should he?  Especially when he was given all he wanted so freely, without pain and consequence?

And this was Draco's ultimate struggle--or it had been, before Azkaban. He wanted to be a rodeo cowboy, one of those who roped up his prize and _earned_ it through skill and determination. But Draco hadn't been raised that way; instead, he conned others into giving him what he wanted. He donned his worst behavior on occasion, timing it so that others would feel nothing but gratitude when he finally settled down to play nice-nice. Tantrums and other low-down dirty devices were how Draco made his way in the world, and a life with Somae would be no different. She would coddle him when he pouted; she would bend over backwards to see that his every need and whim was met.

Draco sighed. That was his old life, and at times it had been so _boring_. Yet now he was starting to miss it terribly.

Easing up off his narrow prison bed, Draco walked stiffly over to the toilet and built-in stone basin. There was no mirror, but Draco didn't need one to know that he probably looked horrible. He could feel the angles of his face pushing against his skin in a new way, suggesting that his countenance was gaunt and starved. The beard was an oddity as well; because he'd never shaved regularly, it was soft and fine, like the belly of a small mammal. Just before his trial his cornsilk hair had been cut short, but it was now trailing over his forehead again, nearly plastered there by the heavy grease and dirt that covered much of his body. Grimacing, he splashed some water against his face, rubbing his eyes until they began to sting. He relished the pain a little, because it reminded him that he could stand it.

That was one thing Mudblood Granger hadn't counted on, too. He had seen _that _in her curious brown eyes--her sheer astonishment that the Dementors hadn't reduced him to a gurgling, incoherent lunatic. Then again, she'd said something about Dementors migrating away from Azkaban, suggesting that their lower numbers were responsible for his rational state of mental health. _Yes, but what the fuck does _she_ know? _She's _the one who's gone starkers, waltzing in here with some kind of rubbish about 'exile'. I'm an innocently-jailed former heir, not a political refugee. _

Draco ignored the fact that he wasn't exactly sure what a political refugee even _was_.

He pivoted away from the sink, frowning. It was less easy to ignore the fact that the Dementors had left him alone for the second night in a row. He didn't want to think that the Mudblood might have been telling the truth about what the Ministry had planned for him, so he concentrated on breakfast, instead. Hungry for the first time in what felt like a week, he headed for the tray on his writing desk; when he was only a few steps away he stopped, confused. This wasn't normal--he could smell _real food_. As in food that wasn't lumpy oatmeal, dry bread, and a mug of lukewarm, metallic-tasting water. Curious, he lifted the domed lid off his tray by a few inches, allowing the rich, fragrant smell of fine cuisine to set his nostrils twitching before finally dashing the lid clean off, his eyes goggling at the spread before him. This was _real food _all right, and all his favorites were represented: fluffy egg frittatas sprinkled with truffles; delicate French crepes studded with fresh strawberries; a pot of perfectly brewed tea.

_What the fuck was going on here?_

Part of him protested that this was _not right_; that something very wrong was going on. The other part of him was hungry, hungry, hungry, and it propelled his body to sit down before the food and start shoveling it in his mouth by the handful. He ate like a wild animal, ignoring the utensils and smearing berries and cream into his wide-open mouth, gulping them down before the full, rich flavors could fully penetrate his tastebuds. He moaned out loud in mid-swallow, nearly choking as he did so.

"I wouldn't wolf that down if I were you," a voice said. Draco started, still chewing, and saw that the voice had come from a man, a uniformed wizard who had just entered his cell. "You're liable to make yourself sick," the man added, grimacing slightly.

Draco frowned. He knew this guy. It was the same man who had escorted him in and out of his cell during the trial. His name was Bumpster....Brewer....something like that.

"What do you want?" Draco asked, surprised to hear a hint of the characteristic Malfoy drawl in his tone. The good food had lifted his spirits, it seemed. Perhaps Somae's father had actually reasoned with the Ministry and prison officials. Perhaps he would even be moved to a nicer cell--one with a bathtub, he hoped.

"Finish up, and then you're coming with me."

"Oh, really?" Draco's heart leapt involuntarily. Now he was picturing a cell with a window--though if the Island was ugly this time of year he hoped there would be curtains, too. Would he be served food like this every day? God, he hoped so.

Beginning to expect that his lunch would be just as good as breakfast, Draco left some of his frittata unfinished and stood up, delicately brushing crumbs off the front of his prison robes. "I'm ready then," he said, and Bumpster-or-Brewer nodded stiffly and told him to put his hands behind his back, wrists pressed close together.

The other wizard murmured a few well-chosen words, and Draco felt his wrists bind together as they had countless times before. Then Bumpster took Draco's elbow and led him out of the cell and into winding halls of Azkaban. All was dark, and Draco had no time to wonder what was coming at him around the corner, what was lying in wait at the murky bottom.

***

"Sevvy! Have you been at the bottle again? I say...look at me when I talk to you!"

Hermione's eyes sprung open, and she rolled them from one side of the room to the other before finally hauling herself up into an upright position. Dim threads of light were coming in through the window, and she realised that it was early morning, and that she had slept the entire night away.

"Wake up, Snape!" Fudge barked, sounding far more business-like that Hermione had ever heard him. Interested now, she shook her head awake and scrambled for the chair, nearly tripping in her hurry to get back to the peep-hole. Putting her eye to the wall, she saw that Snape did, in fact, look uncharacteristically out of it; there appeared to be only an inch of liquor left in his bottle, however, so the fact that he was conscious at all was a wonder. Had he spent the whole of the night drinking in front of the fire?

_Not that I did much better_. The thought crossed her mind as she reached up to adjust the volume on her hearing device; Fudge's hollering was giving her weird feedback. _Great job checking the peep-hole every fifteen minutes, Granger._ Then, as if to compensate for lost time, she pressed her eye to the wall once more.

Snape didn't seem to be coming around much; he stared into the fire--where Fudge's visage was currently located, no doubt--through half-lidded eyes, a lazy snarl working its way across his face. "What do _you_ want?" He asked, his words curiously slurred. "Can't a man bloody sleep withou' a fucking Minishter infesting 'is cosy-wosy fire?"

Hermione shook her head in disbelief. Snape was flat-out knackered, his voice so thick that he sounded more like Tom the barkeep than the severe, ever-proper Potions Master she remembered.

"I have just sent you a _most important owl_," Fudge said, his voice cold and heavy with implication. "I suggest you pull yourself together by the time it arrives."

"Owl?" Snape asked, sounding as if he'd never heard of such a creature.

"Yes, an owl!" Fudge snapped, his temper flaring. "An owl bearing a certain _charm _regarding a soon-to-be-exiled _Azkaban prisoner_."

"Oh, that's right," Snape said, sounding almost coherent for a moment before he once again lapsed into inane babbling. "Idiot blonde...ickle spoiled Daddum's boy Draco Malfoy..."

Hermione almost choked on disbelief again, but then she remembered the last bit of information she'd gathered before apparating to Diagon Alley. According to Andy's Ministry records, Draco had been the one to reveal Snape as a former Death Eater--and in his final speech to the public, no less. It was no wonder, then, that Snape was feeling less-than-fond towards his former Slytherin favourite. Malfoy was the reason that Snape was working under Fudge at all, and, knowing full well how Fudge operated, Hermione couldn't help but feel a flash of sympathy for the hated, former professor. _Perhaps I could let him borrow a blonde wig...teach him a bust-enhancing charm or two. Fudge might be nicer to him if he looked a little prettier._

Hermione winced a little at the acidity of her own mental tongue. Living with Ron for the last two years--especially without Harry's calm, sobering presence--had made her more apt to use profanity and insults, it seemed. 

"You'd better not let me down here, Sevvy," Fudge said, interrupting Hermione's thoughts. "You and I both know what's in store for you if you do."

"Mmm, yes," Snape said, clearly distracted. Then a firm knock sounded on the door of his room, and Hermione could hear an audible _pop_ as Fudge retreated from the fire.

"Private Owl fer yeh, Mister Snape," came Tom's voice.

Snape struggled to his feet and lurched towards the door, mumbling words that Hermione couldn't quite make out. Tom, clearly startled by Snape's appearance, thrust out a scroll of sealed parchment and then bolted down the hall. Still muttering, Snape shut the door and promptly dropped the parchment to the floor. Hermione watched in wonderment as he managed to make his way to the wardrobe without falling down; once there, he began riffling through his satchel until he found a small phial and uncorked it, dumping the contents into his open mouth.

As if, indeed, by magic, a change came over Severus Snape at once. He shuddered and came to his knees, coughing roughly, like a man who'd come just short of drowning. Then he stood up and brushed his hair back debonairly, straightening his rumbled robes as best he could.

_What the hell was that? A hangover tonic? Some kind of alcohol-reversal potion? I need to get Ron one of those_, Hermione thought, distracted by Snape's full recovery. Entirely sober now, he walked lightly back to the spot where he'd dropped the parchment. Gathering it up, he sat at the desk and began to study it. Unfortunately, Snape was not a man who read out loud--or even quietly to himself--and Hermione shifted impatiently as she waited for him to finish. Finally, after several readings, Snape stood up and withdrew his wand from his voluminous robes; then he stripped free of the robes themselves until he was garbed in loose trousers and a plain white tee-shirt--the kind Hermione's father might have worn under his work clothes.

This was the first time Hermione had seen the Potions Master without a full set of robes on, and she looked him over carefully, rather surprised to see that he seemed perfectly human: no scales or horns in sight. He was on the thin side, certainly not malnourished, but without the armour of his robes he struck her as oddly delicate. The way he moved to pick up the parchment, in particular, reflected a subtle grace she had only glimpsed rarely in her life. She had seen it before in Harry when he played Quidditch, and even in Malfoy when he sauntered into a crowded room, fully aware all eyes were on him. She felt a burn of faint jealousy at this realisation; it seemed that she herself was capable of doing nothing strenuous without breaking out into a flood of sweat, her hair frizzy and hanging over her eyes. And yet here was the grumpy Potions Master, oddly elegant as he did nothing more than wave his wand over his wrist in slight circles, murmuring small words.

_Murmuring! _

Frantic, Hermione pointed her wand at her ear, jacking up the volume on her hearing-device.

"_Manifesto Extorris Draco...Manifesto Extorris Draco..._" he chanted, still swirling his wand over his left wrist. How many times did he say the incantation? Hermione thought fast. Five; she was certain. She hadn't thought Snape would have to _implant _the locator charm, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. A charm or hex could hit a person once--with devastating or mild effects--but once it hit, it was usually gone. Implanting spells and charms under the skin was done only when long-lasting effects were desired. Women who didn't want to become pregnant could have a contraceptive charm implanted, for example, and vitality charms worked wonders for men who couldn't perform--or so she'd heard. These were their more common uses, and any kind of implanting was highly regulated simply because the effects were more difficult to reverse or alter. But if Snape wanted to tune into Malfoy's location for an extended period of time, the charm would work best if implanted. Of course, not all implants were good or beneficial, and Hermione was reminded of this as she spied the Dark Mark that blemished Snape's arm.

Trying to reassure herself with the fact that the implant charm _was _Ministry-approved, Hermione hesitated only briefly before raising her own wand to her right wrist.

"_Manifesto Extorris Draco..._"

***

"Where are we going?" Draco dared to ask, his tone hopeful.

"You'll see," Bumpster grunted, pulling at Dracos' arm a bit rougher than necessary, he thought.

Draco frowned. He knew this particular path quite well; it was the one that led to the entrance of the fortress, and he been escorted up and down this cavern several times over the course of his own trial. Why would they be taking him this way?

"Stop dragging your feet," Bumpster said, poking Draco in the back. When then finally reached a tall door, Draco knew it led to the prison's antechamber--the place where humans entered and exited Azkaban. How Dementors entered and exited, Draco didn't know.  Supposedly, they were no longer able to exit at all; an added security measure that had been in place ever since the Dementor Scare of '96, when a small group of Dementors had been lost to Voldemort's control.

The inside of the antechamber was bright, and Draco squinted as he took it all in: the rows steel lockers and bins, a single desk and chair. Another wizard, not much older than Draco himself, nodded tersely at Bumpster from the opposite side of the room.

"This is Barrett," Bumpster said, indicating the other man. "And I'm Brewster. We're both here to officially inform you of your re-allocation into foreign territories that exist outside Azkaban strongholds. This re-allocation will expire in seven years time, upon which your case will undergo Ministry consideration for re-RE-allocation--"

"What did you say?" Draco demanded, his head spinning. "I'm being what?"

Brewster sighed heavily. "Take off your robes, please."

"_What?_"

"Strip!" Brewster ordered.

Too confused to respond, Draco pulled his grimy robes over his head. He was naked beneath them, and he shifted uncomfortably, feeling on display as the cold air prickled up and down his back.

"Bend over," Brewster ordered, extracting a wand from the pocket of his robes.

"What for?" Draco asked, his voice a high, girlish squeak.

Brewster only frowned, and Draco was met with the distinct impression that he ought to comply...and fast. Turning his back to Brewster, his wrists still bound, he bent over at the waist. Despite the chill in the air, he felt a hot bead of sweat roll down the bridge of his nose. His inner-thighs felt weak, and he thought he might soon collapse.

Something brushed against the small of Draco's back, like a cat's questioning paw, and he jumped slightly. "Stop," he whispered, gritting his teeth together.

"Relax," Brewster said, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "This won't hurt." Then the wizard began to mutter a chain of words over and over again, saying, "_Extorris Draco...Extorris Draco_."

"What are you doing?" Draco asked, more curious now than frightened.

"I'm sorry, but I don't have time to talk," Brewster said, hurrying over to the opposite side of the room. "We only have five minutes before that charm takes effect. Oh, and I implanted it very close to your spine, so don't try to do something stupid like removing it with a bowie knife." Brewster slung open a metal bin and pulled out a set of clothes--baggy trousers and a tee-shirt--plus a pair of unfamiliar, lace-up shoes. "Put these on," Brewster said, and with a slight wave of his wand Draco's bound hands fell apart.

Draco only stared at the two wizards; they stood watching him from the other side of the room as if they didn't want to venture too close to him.

"Look, Malfoy," the other--Barrett--said. "The Ministry is washing their hands of you. Sorry, but there's nothing we can do."

"You mean it's true?" Draco asked, his voice strangled. "I'm being sent into exile?"

"Yes," Brewster said, looking at his watch. "In three minutes."

Realizing he was still stark naked, Draco hurried into the clothes. Unsure of how to handle the shoes, he simply held one in each hand and stood dumbly in the middle of the room.

"What will happen to me?" He finally asked, and his voice quivered in a way that was unfamiliar to his own ears.

Brewster only pointed. "That left shoe is a one-way portkey. Don't worry--it'll dump you out in a safe place."

"But..." Draco trailed off, realizing that much of his body had gone numb with shock, but the area around his mid-section was tingling and lively. The portkey was already warming up.

There was a soft noise behind him, and Draco turned. A door he had never noticed before had just opened, and through it slipped Somae DeSilver. She looked as lovely as ever in crimson robes, a bright Phoenix feather tucked into her upswept hair.

"Somae?" Draco asked, not sure if he was seeing things.

She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear--a gesture he was painfully familiar with--and then gave him a small smile. He thought he saw--no, he was _sure _he saw--something like guilt in her pale eyes. Eyes that mirrored his own, except hers were tinged with blue rather than gray.

Funny, her eyes had always reminded him of the waters in the Bay of Angels...clear, calm, and with no secrets swimming beneath the surface.

Except she had deceived him. She must have.

"I'm sorry, Draco," she said, her voice quiet. "But it's for the best."

Before he could respond, the world shifted and she was gone. Or rather, he was.

********************************

First, a big thanky to the fabulous Tien Riu, who did such a speedy-yet-thoughtful beta for this chapter. Second, thanks to chapter 2 reviewers: Supermouse 35 and Cosmoballerina on WKITT; Tacy Stillman, amsev, and Ktie Eiking Snape on FF.net; and of course the fabulous FAPpers, Anais QofW, JessicaCMalfoy, Miss Elvin, Tohru-Chan, and Weird Cowgirl.

Coming soon: The Missing-in-Action Harry finally makes his big entrance.


	5. Chapter Four: Extorris Draco

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter Four: Extorris Draco**

Alone at a long table in the Leaky Cauldron, Severus Snape stirred a dollop of heavy cream into his tea, mesmerized by the white threads that swirled outwards, dissolving until the beverage was a uniform beige tone. As he stirred, his newly marked wrist caught his eye, causing him to grimace. He rubbed it against his coarse robes with unnecessary vigor, wishing his actions were enough to erase the mark. But they weren't, of course. There it was, plain as day: the Ministry's Official Coat of Arms, imprinted into his very flesh and leering back at him like a cancer. He knew this particular type of implant charm wouldn't last more than a few weeks, but the sight of it turned his stomach.

It served as a not-so-subtle reminder that he no longer had the ability to direct the course of his own life. He felt owned.

And not for the first time. For most of his life, Snape _had_ been owned--in one manner or another. In addition to being bound by birth to the magical world itself, like every other wizard and witch, Snape had willingly signed himself on to both Lord Voldemort and then, later, to Albus Dumbledore. Both of those previous assignments had been besot with great downsides, the cons almost always outweighing the pros, but at least he'd entered into both of them of his own volition, fully aware that he was limiting his personal freedom in exchange for both power and protection—or so he had thought at the time. But this assignment with the Ministry had been conjured up entirely against his will, and worse yet, as a job it seemed designed with common numbskulls in mind. Severus had never in his life felt less challenged.

All those years under Dumbledore's thumb, but Snape now had to admit that, in his own way, the old wizard had always tried to inspire him to stretch himself and test the hidden limits of his abilities. Aware that Snape had an embarrassing, almost Gryffindor-like desire to make a great wizard of himself, Dumbledore had assigned him small projects over the years--nothing of great amusement, though Dumbledore _had _been the one to prompt Snape into discovering the Wolfsbane potion. Snape had been quite proud of _that_ little discovery, though his proverbial bubble had been burst when he learned that the Wolfsbane potion he created had been directly handed over to that howling derelict, Remus Lupin.

But Fudge--Fudge was either completely oblivious to Snape's expertise in the field of potions and related magics, or he was quite aware and simply didn't give two knuts. Worse yet, it was possible he was out to intentionally torture Snape by sending him on inane missions in which he was required to stake out Draco Malfoy, his former and most foolish student. Hardly a challenge there.

And why, exactly, was Draco being released from Azkaban to begin with? Pureblood or no, only an idiot would believe that the Muggle world was in any way worse that a Dementor-infested prison, so how exactly was Muggle London supposed to function as just and proper _punishment_? If Lucius Malfoy were still alive, such special (yet bizarre) treatment would have made a degree of sense; as it were, Snape suspected involvement by the next likeliest party--the DeSilver family. As powerful in France as the Malfoys had been in England, Snape thought them fully capable of blackmailing the Ministry into releasing Draco via some mock 'incarceration' program. Rumour had it that Baron Florian DeSilver had forked a heavy dowry over to Lucius in exchange for his daughter's hand-delivered marriage proposal. Having gambled heavily for a piece of the Malfoy pie--a pie that was even more rich and tempting now that Lucius was dead, and Draco left as the logical heir--the DeSilver Baron wasn't going to give Draco up without one hell of a knock-down brawl.

"Milk, please?" A female voice to Snape's left inquired, and without looking he slid the cream pitcher to his side, simultaneously checking his pocket watch. It was 7:48, meaning that in about ten minutes, Draco would be portkeyed somewhere into the heart of Charing Cross Road.

"Sugar?" The woman came again. A touch exasperated, Snape passed the woman a dish of lump sugar, pivoting to face her at the same time. Met with her crooked smile, Snape blinked, slightly un-nerved. The witch was quite a bit younger than the pub's regular clientele; additionally, women--or people, for that matter--did not typically smile at Snape.

Plus, there was something naggingly familiar about a witch of this type. Studying her discretely, Snape saw that she was outfitted in a rather curious set of white robes that cut off at mid-calf--a style new with the youth, no doubt. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a tidy ponytail, her appearance fresh but rather plain and uncomplicated. To Snape she seemed like a witch all set for her first big Ministry interview, a scroll or two of credentials tucked into her belt as she entered Diagon Alley for the very first time on her own--_sans _parents and friends--overly pleased and impressed with herself as well, no doubt.

"Thank you, Professor," she said, dropping a cube of sugar into her teacup and giving it a brisk stir. Snape watched her disinterestedly, and then her words finally hit him.

She had called him _Professor_.

"Pardon me?" he asked, forcing himself not to sputter.

"I said thank you." She tilted her head, her expression bemused.

"No, I meant...did you call me 'professor'?"

"Why? Are you one?" There it was again, that maddening, barely-there grin. What could this young witch--not much older than a Hogwarts' student--be playing at?

"No, I'm not," he said, his tone chilly. "I merely wondered what would have led you to _think_ that I was one."

"Oh...Various things. The ink on your fingers; those quill-shavings stuck to the sleeve of your robes." She shrugged as she spoke, a gesture that suggested she wasn't really interested in hearing his protests.

He quickly brushed the shavings from his sleeve. "I have many important owl correspondents," he said, trying not to wince at the unconvincing tone of his own voice.

She continued on as if he hadn't spoken. "Your robes are horribly out-dated, but have been professionally laundered over the years, suggesting you are accustomed to the luxuries of house-elf servitude. But if you were a wealthy man, you'd own much finer robes, wouldn't you? This leads me to believe that you have most recently lived where house-elf services are provided free of charge--in a large school, for example. Also, your cloak smells faintly of spoilt pumpkin juice. Only at schools of witchcraft and wizardry is pumpkin juice the beverage of choice, what with all those vitamins and such. Adults would rather shrivel up from dehydration than touch a mug of slimy gourd rot, wouldn't they?" She concluded this by taking a long swig of her tea, seeming quite satisfied with her assessment.

Snape knitted a single eyebrow. He _knew_ this girl...or had known her some time ago, hadn't he? There was something in that smug tone that jarred something in the deep recesses of his memory; in any case, it was certain that the girl knew _him_. "Very well," he said, sighing slightly. "So you know that I am a professor. Perhaps you are even a former student of mine. No matter how you know of me, I ask that you leave me be. I'd prefer to be left alone this morning."

She smiled calmly, reaching out to pat his sleeve as if he were a toddler. "Impressive restraint, Professor. I really expected something along the lines of _Sod off you silly, silly cow_. You haven't softened in your old age, have you?"

Snape both heard and felt a faint buzzing begin just behind his forehead; his fury had finally been provoked. Her hand was still touching the sleeve of his robes, and he wrapped his long fingers around her wrist, squeezing tightly. "I did not give you permission to touch me," he said, then quickly swatted her hand away, as if she were a pet poodle who had misbehaved.

She flinched and massaged her wrist, hurt glazing her eyes for a moment until she seemed to shake it off, an uneasy smile breaking across her face. Snape was almost sorry that he'd responded so harshly. Almost. And then he saw it.

She had the Ministry Coat of Arms emblazoned on her wrist.

"What's this?" he asked, striking out to clasp her wrist once more. "An implant? Why in blazes do you have this? Who sent you?" His voice rose until the few diners in the pub turned in their seats to look on with interest. "Are you with Fudge?" he demanded, shaking her until she cried out again. "Are you?"

"Let go...." she whimpered, tears shining in her eyes.

"Answer me!" He wrenched her hand up at an angle, knowing that he must be hurting her terribly, but finding himself unable to really care. He might have been forced into pledging loyalty to Fudge, but he'd promised _nothing _to his little Ministry cronies.

"I said let go!" Now the anger in her voice matched his own, and in one swift move she brought the pointed heel of her shoe down on his foot, hard enough so that he dropped her wrist at once, letting out a heavy grunt. Pain blossomed in his toes and radiated up his calf--_damnable females and their fashionable, pointy-heeled footwear!_

But she wasn't finished, it seemed, and even as he bent over to tend to his mangled foot, she lashed out and slapped him. The ugly sound of her open palm connecting with his face seemed to ring throughout the pub corridors, and Snape felt his cheeks heat up--not in pain (for there was little), but in shame; he'd never been much for spectacle, after all.

"That was for never praising my work even once during my seven years at Hogwarts," she said, her voice astonishingly even. "And for letting Malfoy bugger up my teeth, as well."

_Teeth?_

Forgetting his pain, Snape looked up at her; her mouth was set into a grim line now, and he felt oddly reminded of Minerva McGonagall. _And there's only one female of this age whom you've ever compared to Minerva--Potter's insufferable Muggle cohort, Hermione Granger. _He glimpsed her face again; yes, this was certainly Miss Granger--different in appearance, perhaps, but her stern, no-nonsense expression betrayed her. Dimly, Snape searched out the rest of the dining room, somehow certain that Potter or Weasley would be lurking about in the corner, watching the entire scene play out before them--having a good laugh at old Professor Snape's expense, perhaps. But of course they weren't there. No, she appeared to be alone. _But why?_

"I see these past years have done nothing to change your haughty attitude, Miss Granger," he said, his tone deep and cold as he straightened up in his chair. "Why you are here is a mystery to me, but as I have work to do, I invite you to run along now." He made the same shooing motion with his hand that he typically reserved for his first year students, fully aware it would only infuriate her further.

But she merely sighed, her face sagging with fatigue. "Honestly, I'm nearly tired of hating you, Professor. That slap went a long way in getting pent-up anger out of my system, but it doesn't mean I like our situation any more than you do."

He stared at her, utterly confused. "_Our_ situation?"

She silently displayed her wrist, the faintly red Coat of Arms marring the otherwise pale skin. From afar, it might be mistaken for a simple burn mark.

"What are you trying to tell me? That you are a slave to the Ministry as well?" He paused, collecting his thoughts for a moment. "No, I seem to recall Minerva having news of you a few years back--big important job within the Ministry in the Department of Magical Developments, wasn't it? Yes, I remember now...it was the big crossover between Magical Developments and the Office of Muggle Artifacts. You developed the original plan for networking cauldrons, didn't you?"

She only nodded, seeming weary.

"Ah yes--an illustrious inventor and a disillusioned former professor. Tell me then, Miss Granger, what sort of _situation _could you and I possibly share?"

Instead of answering him, she studied her wristwatch, her brow furrowed as if she were struggling over a particularly difficult Arithmancy question. Snape nearly slapped his own forehead in exasperation. What on Merlin's earth was this dotty witch up to?

"Miss Granger, if you are quite finished checking the time, I'd like to ask you again what it is that--"

"Dummy up!" she said, suddenly pitching forward until they were sitting nearly eye to eye. Dully, he registered that the warm breath the puffed from her lips smelled faintly of sugar and milk. "I realise you adore the sound of your own voice, Professor, but now is _not_ the time--pun not intended." She then lifted her wrist again, this time tapping her watch as if it were something significant. "They've just sent Draco into exile," she explained, and he was at once filled with a dim, strange horror.

Why did he have the distinct feeling that the world--_his_ world--had now changed irreversibly?

***

First there was darkness, and then. . . . more darkness. Draco tried to move and realized he was face down in something slick and squashy and _horrible _smelling. He lifted his head slightly and grimaced as something--some kind of lukewarm liquid--oozed its way down his forehead. He breathed through his mouth for a few seconds, and once it seemed that the portkey-vertigo had waned he tested his limbs to make sure they were fully mobile, then thrust himself back and landed sideways against what could only be a brick wall, barking his elbow a good one in the process. His eyes bolted open at once, but he promptly screwed them shut again, letting out a muted cry in the process. Had the sun always been this bright? Or did it only seem so because he'd been living underground for so many weeks? Shading a hand low over his brow, he slowly opened his eyes once more, taking in his surroundings through squinted lids. He was in a narrow alley of some sort, and it seemed he had landed in. . .a rubbish heap. _Great.__ Just corking. _

He tried to brush coffee grindings from his natty trousers, but really only succeeded in smearing a grimy substance like engine oil all over himself. By the time he had picked himself up from the rubbish and had retrieved both his shoes, he realised that the horrific stench wasn't coming from the garbage alone--it was coming from him. The rotten smell of food and grease and rot had somehow permeated his clothing and was now wafting off him in huge, odious waves. Feeling nearly sick, he pulled his shirt away from his body and flapped it once or twice, trying to air it out a bit. If only. . . he rummaged through his pockets quickly, but found them empty, of course.

_No wand._

He'd been stripped of his wand, just as Granger had warned. He hadn't held a wand in almost two months--and the last one he _had _held had been his father's, just as it had rolled away from his dying grasp--but now he wanted a wand again, and desperately at that. A simple spell would easily rid his clothing of both stench and stains. . .but without a wand, what could he do?

Dazed, Draco sat down in the gravel and pulled on the strange Muggle shoes Brewster had given him, managing to double-tie the over-long laces so that he wouldn't trip over them. Then he got up on unsteady feet and began to walk to the other end of the alley. Just beyond a corner butcher shop he could glimpse people--common Muggle people--walking back and forth at random intervals. Hiding himself safely behind a stout drainpipe, he began to watch them intently: some were by themselves, it seemed, carrying sacks of groceries or speaking aloud into small, palm-held talkie-devices that reminded him of his old wireless. Others strolled by as couples, hand in hand, occasionally with one or two bratty ankle-biters in tow. Many of the Muggles--especially those who moved in pairs--seemed smiling and happy; not unlike the people Draco had seen on Somae's television.

Muggles. There were just...._so many of them! _

He'd seen Muggles before, of course, but was now, for the first time, inclined to actually pay close attention to them. Why did they all speak so loudly? And why did they all seem to be wearing blue? Blue trousers, in particular, seemed to be a popular clothing item for both men and women. Perhaps because of this Draco found it difficult to tell the women and men apart at all; in addition to being dressed similarly, he saw men with tresses that swept past their shoulders, and women with hair chopped off just below their ears. There seemed no consistent way of telling one person apart from the next.

With each Muggle that walked by, Draco's panic mounted. Was it his imagination, or were most of the Muggles...well...._avoiding _eye contact with him? It seemed that each person he searched out was squirming beneath his gaze; women, in particular, clutched at their satchels and hurried on by, their eyes held skyward. Could the Muggles somehow sense that Draco wasn't one of their kind? He was certainly beginning to get that impression.

There was one Muggle, though, who was watching Draco from a few metres away; it was a pale, bald man--bald despite a smooth, young face--who nodded and moved towards Draco, flashing him a tight little smile.

"Need anything, love?" the man asked, his voice high and decidedly female.

That's when Draco realised that the bald man _was_ female. A young woman who, beneath her jacket, was clad in an outfit that rivaled that of the Weird Sisters' notorious leather and chain-mail; worse yet, her face seemed stapled together with odd, metallic studs--one in her nose and one in her lip. Without comprehending what he was doing, Draco began to back away from her.

His expression of horror must have shown, because she frowned at once. "Fine then. I'll try the next corner up," she muttered, shuffling away.

Despite her frightful appearance, Draco was immediately a bit sorry to see her go. The one Muggle who had seemed interested in talking to him, and he'd reacted as if she had a raging case of leprosy. Still, those metal studs _had_ been awful. Draco wondered what sort of accident had befallen her, to leave her riddled with metal like that.

Before he could ponder the issue further, he was knocked to the side by a man in a business-type suit. Draco stumbled slightly, but the man didn't even look up; he just barreled past self-importantly, a newspaper tucked under his arm. Draco straightened up and glared at the man's retreating back.

_Filth.__ Muggle Filth._

But the thought came in his father's voice, rather than his own. Draco had always understood his father's hatred of Muggles--how could he not, being Lucius Malfoy's only son? And to Lucius Malfoy, a Muggle was only a step above the most soul-less and empty Dementor. _To not possess magic, son, is a deformity of the worst nature. _Yes, Draco was nursed on these words as a young lad in short pants, and not even Dumbledore or Mudblood superstars like Granger had much swayed his opinion.

But then he'd gone out and seen the world, so to speak. He saw beautiful, Muggle-built cities and streets, and found that after a time, he actually felt a bit sorry for the hated Muggles that walked them. Deformed? He wasn't sure of that. But blind?  Utterly silly? Most definitely.  Mostly, he just wished he didn't have to mingle with them.

And then there was Somae and her charming, "Let Them Eat Cake" attitude towards the Muggle community. She too saw them as creatures more worthy of pity than hatred. She marveled over their fine shops and famous works of art, declaring them a sensitive and creative species...not one deserving any sort of _special protection_, of course, but certainly not threatening or offensive enough to consider stomping out entirely. Then again, the DeSilver family was rumoured to have made much of their fortune not off their famous patent on Wizard currency, but rather off selling dangerous hexes to Muggle militants on the black-market. So of course she would be in favour of keeping Muggles around--they were her family's most prominent source of income, it seemed.

_And speaking of Somae... _

What in blazes had she been doing in Azkaban? As soon as she stepped from the shadows, Draco _knew _that she was there to oversee his grand exit from the prison. But why? _Why?_ All he could remember was her murmured apology, and that vivid blush of guilt on her cheeks. What could she possibly have to do with all of this?

"Hello? Are you hearing me at all....Hello?"

Draco swiveled around at once, hopeful, but it was just another suited Muggle--a man speaking into a little talk-box that he'd pressed against his ear. Stupid talk-box...what on earth was the point of those things, anyway? Draco guessed it was a way in which Muggle's communicated with one another...but how peculiar it must be to talk to someone without also _seeing_ them. Talk-boxes, indeed.

Yet Draco couldn't help but remember that when in France he had glimpsed talk-boxes on the street corners--little booths with pay talk-boxes that anyone could wander up to and use. Might there be something like that around here? Trying to appear casual, despite the fact that he was rank and grubby, Draco joined the Muggles on the street and began to stroll down the walk, shifting his eyes from right to left.

Ah! There it was. A pay talk-box right next to what looked like a newspaper vendor. Feeling a tingle of new hope brew inside his chest, Draco hurried over and inspected it. His hope drained away almost at once when he realised he had no idea what he was supposed to do next. The talk-box consisted of a removable mouthpiece that was attached (via a strange cord) to a squat apparatus that was covered with numbered buttons. Draco studied each button carefully, hoping for some kind of instruction, but he could make no sense of what he saw before him.

_And who would I talk to, anyway...? Somae? Mother?_

Certainly not Somae. Not yet, anyway. But his mother...his mother would be at Malfoy Manor, probably under magical sedation. To say she'd been depressed for the past few months would be a giant understatement, but still, she'd be more able to help Draco than anyone else he could think of. She wasn't likely to venture into Muggle London on her own, but she could certainly send some of the servants out to fetch him.

_Right.__ Okay. So how to use the talkie-thing to contact Mother?_

Deciding there must be some logical rhyme or reason to the numbers on the box, Draco put the mouthpiece to his ear and studied the buttons once more. After a few seconds, he realized with a jolt that there weren't just numbers on the buttons....there were _letters_, too. Letters! That must be it. He began to dial:

_N-A-R-C-I-S-S-A-M-A-L...._

The mouthpiece bleated rudely in his ear, eliciting a high-pitched sound. He pawed at the box, frustrated, grumbling profanities under his breath. Then he remembered: Money! It was a _pay _talk-box, so that must mean he would have to insert a Muggle coin into it in order to make the talk-box function properly. Right then. So how to get himself a Muggle coin?

"Pardon me," he said to a passing woman, hoping that he was flashing his most winning smile. The woman herself was no prize--a frumpy sort dressed in a too-tight pair of those blue trousers that seemed so popular amongst Muggles. Still, she would be easy to charm, he was sure. "Could I please borrow a coin for the talk-box?" He continued to smile, cheeks aching.

"The _what_?" The woman paused in her steps, looking at him in alarm.

"Um, you know," Draco said, uncomfortable. "A coin for that..." He made a casual gesture towards the talk-box, hoping the woman would get the gist.

The woman's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Sure...you say you'll call home now, but I've seen how you street kids operate--there was a show on the telly about it just last week. You spend all the money you get on drugs and liquor, eh? Well, I won't be party to that!" And with this she made a move to flounce away, tossing her hair haughtily. 

"No, wait..." Desperate, Draco reached out and clung to her satchel, trying to stop her retreat.

"Stop that!" The woman squealed, her face reddening. There was fear in her voice now, though Draco couldn't imagine why. He didn't want to hurt this woman--he didn't even have a wand on him, for shit's sake.

"Please, I just..."

"Stop! Thief! Thief trying to snatch my purse! Help!"

The woman began to shout and fail her arms, swatting at Draco's hand until he let go of her satchel. A number of passersby paused in their tracks, giving Draco _extremely _unpleasant looks.

"Hey...you there!" The newspaper vendor had stepped out from behind his counter and was approaching Draco, rolling up his sleeves as he did so. Draco couldn't help but notice that the vendor had very knotty, strong-looking arms, as well as a ring the size of a quail's egg on his right pinky-finger. Ouch. A ring like that could leave a permanent mark.

"You best haul arse out of here, boy....before I think to call for the constable," the vendor said, hawking an enormous glob of spit onto the ground and missing Draco's shoe by only a few centimeters.

Haul arse. Yes. Draco would do just that.

He began to run.

***

"Calm down," Hermione said, lowering her hand and, at the same time, sliding her wand into the tall shaft of her boot.

Snape glared at her. "What do you mean..._calm down? _I'm perfectly calm, you silly girl."

She studied him silently: ashy rings around his sleep-deprived eyes, hair as greasy as she'd ever seen it, and, despite all claims of calmness, his throat was bobbing up and down as if he were trying very hard to swallow something the size of...oh, say a bowling ball.

"Goodness me....you're really not good at this anymore, you know."

"Not good at what, exactly?" This said with a double-dose of the death stare.

"This cloak and dagger drama," she said, waving her arm around at the whole of the pub. "Not good at hiding out...not good at waiting. And not good at taking orders, especially."

Finally, he swallowed. He took a deep breath, and as he did so she involuntarily pulled a few centimeters away, certain he was going to give her a good scolding.

But all he said was, "So you've noticed," his voice croaking audibly on the last word. But his scowl deepened at the same time, and he straightened up in his chair as if trying to gather up the last vestiges of his pride.

"Not that I blame you," she added, carefully. "Take orders from Fudge? I imagine I'd rather attend beauty school, myself."

He only stared at her, an odd mixture of emotion churning behind his dark eyes. "Tell me, Miss Granger...why are we discussing my predicament when Draco Malfoy is, as you've only just pointed out, stumbling around London, right outside our door?"

She fought the urge to pout. "Bugger...you're not quite the tyrant I remember, Snape. But yet...you must be," she said, giving him a curious look. "An owl's spots don't change, do they?"

"Never heard of molting then, have you?" he said, lazily raising an eyebrow.

Hermione blinked. That wasn't an attempted _joke_, was it? Where was sour, dour Snape? The Snape she'd witnessed spewing profanities at the Minister of Magic only an hour or so earlier? This other Snape was resigned and weary, if not exactly good-natured. This was Snape-lite. Snape: the low-fat, semi-good-for-the-heart version.

"Right then," she said, hastily changing the subject. "Malfoy. Yes, Malfoy. Well, we can't rightly go out looking for him, can we? Are there any places around here he might venture to?"

Snape looked bored. "He might very well try to venture _here_, Miss Granger. He knows the Leaky Cauldron is on Charing Cross Road, and he'll try to find it if he can."

Hermione frowned. "But he can't find it, can he? I mean, the Exile charm they implanted in him means he'll only see what Muggles see, right?"

"Right."

Hermione was beginning to suspect she'd seen more enthusiastic flobberworms in her day. "But if you think he'll be wandering around the area, perhaps we should sit by the window and keep watch for him, yes?" she suggested, her voice a shade too bright and earnest even to her own ears.

Another mumble. "Fine."

Hermione made the first move, standing up and wrapping her white trench coat around her tightly; she wore a regular Muggle dress beneath it, knowing full well that she'd more than likely end up following Malfoy out into the London streets. She left the remains of her breakfast behind and moved towards a small table near the window, aware the Snape was begrudgingly following all the way.

"Would you please stop acting as if you're attending your own funeral?" she said finally, watching him fall into the chair beside her, letting out a heavy sigh that sounded more like a grunt.

"Miss Granger, my funeral was on the day of Draco Malfoy's sentencing. Since then I have simply bided my time, waiting for whatever insidious joke life has planned out for me next." He gave her a penetrating look, as if gauging her reaction to the severity of his own words, and then allowed his eyes to drift away once more.

"Alright, alright...so Draco ruined your life. But from what I can gather, you weren't exactly enjoying it in the first place." She searched him out, but he continued to gaze out the window and into the street, keeping an eye out for Draco, presumably. "What I mean is, you've never struck me as a teacher who lived for his job. Pardon my saying so--"

"I _didn't _live for my teaching job, Miss Granger. I _loathed _teaching. But at least the rest of my life was my own," he spat. "Bad enough that I had to be a good little lad in front of the students and staff...but at least I had plenty of time that belonged to me alone. At least there wasn't all this mindless waiting...this insidious, mind-numbing..."

"I get the point!" she said, raising her hands in protest. "But isn't Fudge to blame, more than Draco? And don't you feel at least a smidge of pity for your former Slytherin? He's wandering out on the Muggle streets with no money or magic or proper identification, all because the Ministry can't keep the Dementors from high-tailing it out of Azkaban..."

"Dementors?" Snape quipped, his expression faintly amused. "Do you really think Draco's exile is all on account of a few Dementors?"

She paused a beat. "Isn't it? I mean...You-Know-Who's behind this too, I'm sure..."

Snape let loose a dry, low chuckle. "If you're looking for the real motivator behind Draco's release, you'd best focus on Draco's lovely bride-to-be and her father, the Baron."

"Somae DeSilver?" Hermione frowned. "But how could _she _possibly be involved in all of this? She's just a prissy, spoiled princess. . ." She trailed off, wondering if Snape himself even remembered Somae as one of the Beaubaxtons' students who had visited Hogwarts during the Tri-wizard Tournament. She gathered that Ron and Harry had been too busy eye-balling Fleur Delacour to notice the dark-haired, rather plain French girl who stood at Fleur's left on the day of Beaubaxton's arrival--how Somae later materialized as a great beauty was a mystery to Hermione, but she'd put her money on Shamanistic facial shaping, the wizarding world's answer to plastic surgery. Once Fleur had been chosen as a Tri-Wizard champion, Somae had disappeared from Hogwart's--not interested in remaining to cheer her fellow classmate on, presumably. "And Baron DeSilver? Why would he be so interested in Draco? He's got money and power of his own without the help of the Malfoy name..." she trailed off, not voicing the question that lingered on the tip of her tongue.

_Tell me, Professor Snape...is Baron DeSilver one of your old playmates? Is he even, perhaps, high up in the echelon of Death Eaters? It would make sense, certainly...even if the DeSilvers are publicly seen as nothing more than noble Gringotts' bankers with a few mouldering skeletons in the family closet.. _

Seeing as how they both done their share of work for the Order of the Phoenix, Snape had to know that Hermione was well aware of his past with the Death Eaters, but somehow, she felt it best not to bring such ancient history up--especially when the man seemed sorely in need of antidepressant therapy. Instead, she bit her tongue. "Maybe Draco's exile is about all of them, somehow--the Ministry, the Dementors, the Dark Lord, the DeSilvers..."

"Oh yes," Snape snorted, tugged at a greasy length of his hair. "It's a world-wide conspiracy of grand proportions. All for one idiotic, juvenile, _blond..._"

"Hey," Hermione interrupted, poking him in the shoulder with the tip of her wand. "I don't suppose you see our little lost blond wandering around out there, do you?"

Snape squinted at the street. "Not at all."

Hermione studied the Muggles walking by just outside the window, not a one of them bothering to glance in at the Leaky Cauldron as they passed. "What keeps them from looking in?" She wondered out loud. "Does the magic surrounding Diagon Alley make the pub invisible, or...?"

Snape curled his mouth disdainfully, as if she were a first year who had just asked an impossibly stupid question. "Not invisible, just insignificant. What the Muggles see is the last shop on earth they'd ever dream of waltzing into."

"How so?"

He sighed audibly and re-adjusted himself in his chair before answering. "Well, if your friend Ron Weasley were a Muggle and walked by the pub, he'd probably see a extremely scholastic sort of book store. And you..." he paused, regarding her for a moment, "...would probably see a sorely overstocked Quidditch supply shop."

She fought the urge to grin. "Yes, I get the analogy. So what would Draco see, assuming he's now affected by the surrounding magic in the same way that Muggles are?"

"I think I'd rather not know," said Snape, using his fists to rub at his eyes.

"Well..." Hermione said slowly, straightening up at once. "You could ask him yourself..."

"What?" Snape dropped his hands at once, looking at her blearily.

Hermione raised her hand deftly. "There's our boy now," she said, pointing at Draco Malfoy, who was pushing his way through the crowd like a man trapped in a dream...or a nightmare. He looked a disaster, covered from head to toe in muck and grime, and his aristocratic brow was pink and sweaty, as if he'd been running. He was walking towards the Leaky Cauldron as if he both saw and didn't see the place; he looked through the window, his gray eyes meeting Hermione's, but there was nothing more than a curious emptiness reflected there. _He didn't see her._ He shifted from one foot to the other, rubbed his chin quizzically, then finally seemed to give up, backing away into the pedestrian traffic once more.

"Don't you think we ought to..." Hermione began, turning to look at Snape.

But she stopped at once, seeing that Snape was on the verge of some apoplectic fit; a large vein was jumping in his neck, and his usually-sallow skin had reddened dramatically. "_Get him...!_" he choked out, clawing at her sleeve. Hermione's mouth fell open, agast, and she was nearly knocked over as Snape bounced to his feet and lunged for the front door of the pub, his robes streaming out behind him.

"No! Hermione yelped, clambering out of her chair. "Stop...don't go out there!"

Too late...Snape was already out on the street, shouting "_GET BACK HERE, YOU!_" and to the Muggles probably looked like a very deranged man in a long, black nightdress.

"Snape!" Hermine shouted, taking off after him. But he kept going, knocking parcels out of arms and nearly spilling over a baby pram. Women screamed and men protested, and Hermione hadn't the slightest idea where Draco had gotten off to. Snape continued to shout and came within an inch of barreling straight into morning traffic, but finally..._finally_ Hermione caught up and snatched at the back of his billowing robes, hauling up at them fast and hard, like she would with the reins of a runaway horse.

"Uncle Snape!" she said loudly, attempting to placate the gathering crowd with a nervous smile. "Oh, we'd best get you back to the doctor, Uncle! You know how you get when you haven't had your medication!"

Snape turned around at once, shooting her a look that made her want to drop straight down through the asphalt. "Unhand me, Miss Granger," he snarled, trying to pull away.

"Come along, _Uncle_," she said, glaring at him. "Come back to the car now, will you?" Step by tiny step, Hermione walked back towards the Leaky Cauldron, yanking Snape along like a dog on a leash. She suspected the only reason he complied was because he'd finally noticed all the unpleasant and threatening looks he was receiving. Once back inside the sanctuary of the Leaky Cauldron she dropped the hem of his robes at once, planting both hands firmly on her hips.

"What were you thinking out there? Are you absolutely starkers or something? You can't just run out into a crowd of Muggles dressed like that...and did you really think Malfoy would stop to chat to a screaming lunatic?"

Snape looked faintly admonished. "I am his former Head of House," he grumbled. "I think he'd be happy to see me."

"Dream bloody on! He _knows _he messed up by revealing your D.E. years to the public. Just as I'm sure he also knows you want to kill him for it--or so one would think from your little outburst just now. Honestly!"

Snape looked out of things to say; the fury had finally drained out of his face, and with it came that damnable, utterly under-whelmed expression.

"What now?" he finally said, turning his palms upright in surrender.

She looked him over: Severus Snape, her former least favorite professor, and now a washed up, has-been of a Potions Master. She wondered if she could trust him.  Dumbledore always had, but she had really never understood _why_.

"Come with me," she said, hoping she wasn't making a colossal mistake. "It's time for plan B."

***

Draco Malfoy wanted to cry. And to cry was a thing he didn't often want to do. In fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he had truly cried.  When his Father had scarcely escaped prison time—_again_—back in the summer of his fifth year?  Not likely, as he'd been far too relieved.  At his own recent trial?  No--his mother had wept enough tears for both of them. At the moment he realised his father was dead, sprawled out elegantly on the Manor's parquet floor? No--not then, either. He'd been too busy teetering on the uneven cusp that exists between shock and utter horror, his lungs paralyzed against anything that remotely resembled sobbing, weighing like two blocks of wood in his chest.

Wait....scratch that. He _could_ remember the last moment he'd cried--quiet and alone, on the very night that Harry Potter's name had emerged from the Goblet of Fire, a flutter of paper rising from ash. _A Champion_. All his life, Draco had been told that Harry Potter wasn't heroic--just lucky. _No better than you, son. Not a pureblooded Malfoy. Not even a Slytherin. _Just lucky. Just tucked like a coin inside fate's cosy pocket.

But Draco had only been fourteen, and the Goblet, that treasured object imbued with the oldest of magics, declared what he had always dreaded to be true.

_Harry Potter, Champion._

Draco had cried then as he wanted to now--great, gasping sobs; snot streaming down his face in uneven runners; the hollow cavern of his chest gone tender and quivering. But that had been in the dead of night, and he had been hidden in a stall in the boy's toilet, the tip of his wand sending out a faint, blue pin-point of light. And now Draco was in the middle of Muggle London, alone in the blazing daylight. And he had been fourteen then; he was nearly twenty-one now.

It seemed he'd been wandering through the Muggle streets for weeks instead of just hours. Yes, wandering and still no closer to finding home. Had such a place--home?--even existed?  In the nights before the Dementors came, he would lay alone in the dark of his cell, able to close his eyes and perfectly map out the details of his old room behind his eyes. Over there by the door: an antique, Louis XIV armoire with gold filigree tooling. Beneath his bare shoulders: green sheets spun from Chinese silk, his initials monogrammed on the top hem. He could almost hear the ticking of the grandfather clock that stood stately in the corner. Home had been vivid and close enough to breathe in--the memories of it powerful enough to warm the barest and coldest of rooms.

But now there was nothing recognizable: brick building after brick building, a sequence with no end or beginning. At one point he'd seen a stretch of street that felt familiar deep down, somewhere in the marrow of his bones--perhaps in that part of him that was still magic, somewhere. One shop, in particular, had drawn him near. Had he been here before? The shop was closed for the day, and a simple sign in the front window read "T & R's Vacuum Repair". Draco had backed away slowly; he didn't know what a vacuum was--it didn't sound like anything good. And it was at this point that he heard a man shouting, "You there, Stop!" Not eager to deal with another over-muscled, angry newspaper vendor, Draco had run.

He was getting good at that.

Now it was many hours later, and Draco was thirsty and exhausted and cold, beyond caring that he was filthy. Having moved very little in recent months, his muscles were brittle and deteriorated, aching even as he took slow, careful steps. But he couldn't just collapse on a street corner and wait for someone to take him in. Neither could he join the other men who wandered the streets; he saw them as they conspired in the alcoves between buildings, passing a paper-bagged bottle between them, calling out "spare a bit of change?" to those better dressed and far better groomed.

And so Draco found himself in another rubbish-filled back alley, his sore legs stretched out before him as he leaned against the chilly bricks of an anonymous building. He closed his eyes, on the verge of giving in to the mercy of sleep. To sleep would certainly be less risky than crying--and kinder, too, he imagined.

"Well then, don't you look like yesterday's lunch?"

At the sound of the voice, Draco looked up at once, not certain he wasn't dreaming. Before him stood the most exotic woman he had ever seen, all sloe-eyes and deep, coffee-coloured skin. She might have been beautiful under her glitter and lipstick, but all Draco could see was her dress splashed with poppies as she loomed over him like a stately amazon. He stared and she smiled; perhaps the first genuine smile he'd seen all day.

"What?"

"He speaks!" The woman let out a low, pleasant laugh. "We don't open for another hour, love...but if you want an autograph, I'd be willing to oblige."

"Autograph?" Draco felt his mouth working, but very little sound seemed to come out.

"Shit...you're not on a trip, are you? Listen....as far as the Uncle Bills know we're all clean around here--but if junkies start hanging from the chandelier, they'll know something's off. See what I mean?"

"No," Draco said, finally coherent. "I don't see at all, actually."

The woman's eyes narrowed a little. "You're not a Londoner," she said. "You sound quite a bit like a well-bred schoolboy, in fact."

"I _am _a well-bred schoolboy," Draco said, suddenly feeling quite good--the best he'd felt in weeks, in fact. "Or was, anyway...." He examined his soiled clothing for a moment. " I don't usually look this...unkempt. I've had a terrible day, you see."

"Looks like," the woman said, nodding. "You look quite a bit like a bundle of rags lying there, in fact."

"I know," Draco said, his tone betraying his misery. 

"Anyway, Sir Rags, I'm due at work...." She gestured at a nearby door, and craning his neck, Draco could read small, untidy letters that said _The Pink Bishop_. "I don't suppose you need help or anything, do you?"

"Actually..." Draco tried very hard not to bounce upright and cling to her knees out of gratitude. "I'm trying to contact my mother. I don't suppose I could..." He paused here, uncertain of how to voice his request.

She raised an eyebrow, looking at him expectantly. "...use our telephone?" she finished, smiling archly.

"Yes!" Draco bleated, clambering to his feet. _Telephone.__ Not talk-box, stupid. Telephone!_

"Sure thing, peaches. It's not long distance, is it?"

_Peaches?_

"No, not too long of a distance, I don't think."

The woman let out another rolling, low-honeyed laugh. "You're an odd one. Righty then. Just let me ask the boss." She propped open the back door to the Pink Bishop, balancing a particularly large, tiger-striped satchel on her hip as she did so. "Hey, Big H!" she shouted, and her voice boomed, surprisingly loud. "Got a blond bloke out here who wants to use the phone....you mind if I let him in?"

Draco heard a muffled voice come from somewhere inside the building. "Hell, Varda...not another stray, is it?"

"Come on, H...." she called, giving Draco a wink. "I think he might be cute, once we clean him up a bit!"

"Fine..." Draco heard footsteps as the voice came closer. "But if it's long distance, I'm taking it out of your tips this time. I mean it."

The door suddenly swung wide, and the figure that swept through both propped open then door and attended to Varda's animal print satchel in one smooth motion, then turned toward the alley, his mouth parted a bit, as if he already had a greeting on the tip of his tongue.

Draco's gaze was caught by the man's black cowboy hat-- taking in the brim that curled up on both sides like two waves crashing in on themselves. Then he looked at the face beneath the brim, shadowy and pale, a thin lick of black hair brushing over his forehead...and the two green eyes--so green that they leaped out, quick as vipers.

Draco felt his gut clentch. He knew those green eyes--deep and brilliant, like a swirl of Chinese malachite. The green eyes of Harry Potter...

_Fucking champion._

*********************************************

Why is Harry wearing a Cowboy hat?? This remains to be seen. ;)

Big thankies to all the readers and reviewers on Schnoogle, WIKTT, and FF.net: Cosmoballerina, Karen, GMTH (Gina), Pita, Tatiana, ColdCoffeeEyes25 (Anna), Serena, CJPsAngel, Ktie Eiknlng Snape, Unregistered person #1, Katarina, Resmiranda, Arwen Malfoy, JessicaCMalfoy, Miss Elvin, WvB, Jasmyn, Aha, and Nmissi. And, as always, my greatest appreciation to Tien, my beta-reader.


	6. Chapter Five: What Was Lost, Long Forgo...

**Been Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill! **

**Chapter 5: What Was Lost, Long Forgotten**

**July 26th 1996**

**Four Years Ago...**

_Severus__ sees the ruby-red mouth of Judy Garland tremble under the weight of her heavenly soprano, her ribboned plaits and checkered frock belying the sadness of her smoky, up-held gaze. She seems to look directly into his eyes as she sings, her angelic voice somehow dissolving the decades between them, erasing her own inevitable death, bending film and magic until her world--a world of __Emerald__Cities__ and poppies--seems recognizable as his own. But then her lush mouth cuts off with a scream: _Run Toto, Run!_ The landscape of emeralds and flowers and yellow bricks goes up in a cyclone--a whirlwind of black and white dust._ And then Snape woke up, wondering why he still dreamt of poor lost Dorothy, even all these years later.

The dreams had begun not long after Snape's sixth year at Hogwarts, the year during which he had taken Muggle Studies with Professor Lavinia Marlette--not because it was his choice to do so, but because during the 1970s it was required that all non-Muggle students take at least one term of Muggle Studies. This mandate was, at the time, one of the numerous ways in which Dumbledore and the teaching staff tried to quell the rising tensions between Muggle-born and Pureblood students--tensions which were, at the time, only a reflection of the larger battles being fought outside the haven of Hogwarts.

Professor Marlette had several Muggle cousins and really knew only the basics of Muggle history and lifestyle. She instructed students about important events during World War I and II, and had them memorise a list of famous world leaders that included Franz Ferdinand, Mahatma Ghandi, and John F. Kennedy; these particular men being the only ones Snape was ever able to put to memory, perhaps because they had all been killed--or assassinated, as the Muggles called it. The most fascinating unit in the class was, in Snape's opinion, the two or three weeks they had spent studying the Muggle perception of the magical world. They had read several fairytales, Tolkien, Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and one man's strange parable of the Salem witch trials, titled The Crucible. The unusual reading matter inspired much heated commentary on how peculiar and off-base the Muggle perspective on magic was--particularly the notion of Fairy Godmothers, since every Wizard and Witch was well aware that all fairies were daft little blighters.

Overall, the class had been mostly unremarkable, if not slightly entertaining, excepting one moment when, in an attempt to illustrate the Muggles' imaginative take on the appearance and behavior of witches, Professor Marlette had brought in an old two reel copy of The Wizard of Oz, magically suspending the film in the air and beaming her wand-light so that the images played forth on the classroom wall, tinny song erupting on all sides of the room. At first, Snape had been quite taken with the film: the Muggle girl--Dorothy--had a sweet, crystalline voice, and he had almost...._almost_...felt a small smile play on his lips when she had stepped out into the colourful world of Oz, her mouth suddenly a dazzling shade of garnet as she was surrounded by those little munchkins who squeaked at her with their house-elvish voices. But his momentary delight in the film was promptly forgotten when the Wicked Witch of the West had swept down on her broomstick (_not _a Shooting Star or Cleansweep, from what he could tell), cackling like a banshee-in-heat. She might have been garbed in the proper black robes, but the mould-green face and long, hooked nose made her look more like a hag that any authentic witch. Snape had quickly touched his own too-hooked nose, his cheeks turning hot in the dark of the classroom. Was this what the Muggles thought of his people? Of his parents and friends? That they kept armies of flying monkeys? Or that a wizard's 'light' or 'dark' powers were always in accordance with which hemisphere he resided in? Dorothy's warbling tremolo was forgotten as Severus felt himself grow irritated...then angry at the Muggles' stupidity. At their....(_insensitivity_)...foolishness.

Anger had been Snape's primary emotion in those days. His mother had chastised him for it, bemoaning the fact that he'd been born with his Father's rash temper. During these moments, Snape had always enjoyed reminding her that she'd fallen in love with his father _despite_ his notorious temper, and that as such, she really ought to just accept her son's equally explosive nature. She'd always been easily swayed by this point, actually--perhaps because love between pureblood couples was rather rare, seeing how lineage, money, and power played such a large part in the arrangement of the marriage in the first place. But Claudio and Odile Snape had been lucky--they'd actually been inspired to celebrate on the day the dowry went through, meeting after dark to share a bottle of butterbeer under a moon-dappled Rowan tree, kicking their shoes loose and burying their toes in the damp spring grass.  This was the story Odile had told, at least; Claudio had never offered his own version of the event.

Perhaps it was that youthful romantic streak--light and foppish as Dorothy's famous song about rainbows--that had won Odile over, although in front of Severus, Claudio had always been a quiet, unassuming man--up to a point. When pushed in a direction he did not want to be pushed, his demeanor shifted, a mutinous wrath boiling beneath the surface of his dark, sharply-honed features. He once claimed--only once--that anger was one of the greatest catalysts for any man; it could make a man do what he would otherwise never consider. And all those other noble words that men used to justify their less-than-acceptable deeds--vengeance, justice--were really just _anger_ all dolled up in fancy dress. Anger: it got things done.

Fear on the other hand, was far less predictable--depending of course on who was inflicting fear, and who, on the other end, was experiencing it.

And now Snape was becoming reacquainted with fear--his biggest fear of all being that this time, there might not be any saving anger, any rage to propel him into action. "If you are prepared...?" the old man had asked, and damn it if Snape hadn't felt the tiniest bit of pride in the trust sketched out on Dumbledore's face. He could try to back out.  Could dig into his Gringott's savings and head for the hills of Siberia; could take a powder, just like Karkaroff. But Snape owed Dumbledore--just as he owed his own mother and father and the Snapes who came before them.  Not more than fifteen years before, Snape had willingly entered into a pact that could not be broken, gladly pasing his fate over to a man he had never cared for.  All to sate his hatred, his need for vengeance...his anger.

On this night Snape wore his finest robes, the ones inscribed with the ancient Death Eater Allegiance insignia on a patch just above his heart: a skull crowned by an _ouroboros_, the serpent devouring its own tail. The creators of eternity, the devouring of death to bring forth rebirth--all a bit dramatic in the pomp-and-circumstance department, perhaps, but purebloods rarely did anything halfway. _Veri__ sumus in aeternum _was the motto they had adopted hundreds of years ago, when it became evident that Wizards would no longer be able to live completely apart from the growing Muggle populous. _The true ones forever._And so they were--or so they had hoped, anyway.

But then Lord Voldemort had made his first public appearance--back in the 1950s, before anyone thought to call him "You-Know-Who"--politely requesting that the Death Eaters hand complete Allegiance over to him. He swore to uphold their long-cherished purpose; promised a means of preserving the purity of bloodlines indefinitely.

He had ways of persuading even the most sceptical of individuals.

And so the power of the Death Eaters shifted hands, and their original symbol was re-drawn by the hand of another. A subtle change, really...a skull devouring a serpent: the consumption of death; the consumption of all those who bring forth its threat. _Verendi__ sumus in aeternum._

_We must be feared forever._

So the moment of fear was here: the Dark Mark burned, his second mandatory invitation to appear at the Dark Lord's side, occurring nearly a near after the last. The first had occurred on the evening of Voldemort's initial resurrection, just after the completion of the Third Task. He had not dared to leave the sanctuary of Hogwarts on that particular night: not with the Diggory boy and Potter having vanished into thin air, and the Bulgarian seeker guilty--or so they had then thought--of having performed an unforgivable curse. And the re-emergence of the dark mark on his arm had taken him by surprise--this despite the fact that it had been clear, all year long, that there was something sinister afoot amongst his former Death Eater cohorts. Funny how a mark that he had once been so accustomed to...had been so _proud_ to bear...could now feel so foreign. Like something of a parasite worming beneath his epidermis. What made it worst was having no inkling of what lay in store for him if he returned like a loyal pet to Voldemort's hearth.

Not that Snape had much of a better idea now, a year later.  He didn't know what had taken the Dark Lord so long to notice his absence—except of course that he had spent the better part of that year chasing after a useless prophecy.  Now, though, it seemed that Voldemort was ready to take stock of his current Death Eaters and clean house.

He pulled his robes around him--they had been his father's, and his grandfather's before him--and stepped into a clearing just outside of Hogsmeade, simultaneously rolling up his sleeve. The mark, normally a translucent red outline, was now charry black. Snape drew out his wand and reached around to tap the dark mark once, knowing that no matter what venomous place the Dark Lord happened to be squatting around, he'd be sent there in a stream of unspooled molecules, Apparating directly at Voldemort's side. He closed his eyes and let himself go.

The slight breeze that lapped at his ankles subsided, and the sound of bent rushes was replaced by fire, crackling cheerlessly nearby. When he opened his eyes again, he was inside an ordinary Manor-home; there were no other Death Eaters to be seen. As he would have predicted, it was mostly dark. In half-shadow, he saw the white, spidery movement of Voldemort's hands as he stood and clutched the throat of his robes shut.

"Severus," he said, his voice whisper-quiet. "So you've come to me." His tone was off-hand, as if Snape had merely been standing him up at brunch or a bridge game. But Snape knew that casual tone all too well...nothing good would come of it.

"Sometimes I wonder why I ever put faith in the service of other humans," Voldemort sighed, moving a half-metre to the left. Light suddenly spilled forth, and Snape saw that the Dark Lord had been kneeling before a low bed, and that the bodies of a man and a woman lay out on the top quilt, their skin already turning a low shade of grey. It was Igor Karkaroff and his wife, Mathilde. Mathilde had always possessed lovely, russet-streaked hair. It was disconcerting that it still managed to glimmer in the firelight, a glimpse of something once alive and friendly. At the sight of it Snape felt everything go cool and loose in the region just below his stomach.

"I came to see if Igor had anything to say to me," Voldemort said, his reddish eyes searching out Snape's own. "He was...as you can see...at a loss for words."

Snape kept his face expressionless; that familiar roil of fear was frothing at the back of his neck and he forced himself to sandbag it off. He couldn't afford to let that fear flood out the rest of his body.  He must veil his thoughts from Voldemort's penetrating eyes.

Igor dead now, after successfully evading vengeful Death Eaters for months. How did this bode for him? And as for Igor--could Snape feel sorry for him? _Should_ he? Karkaroff had fled in the events following the third task, and the rumours that mushroomed in his wake claimed that he had actually spent the entire previous year working for the Ministry itself, spying on the Death Eaters and reporting any juggle-the-Muggle mischief or criminal intent to resurrect Dark Lords. In exchange for immunity and protection, of course. The Karkaroff he had known would never have worked for the Ministry out of the goodness of his own heart. No...he had wanted the protection of both parties, without having to actually choose a side.

And as for sides, Snape had only chosen once. And he had chosen with absolute trust and confidence, though as the white mask was lowered over his face by his own father, Snape had glimpsed uncertainty in Claudio's eyes. Not the pride he was expecting, but concern....a far-off mulling over of fear. Those hands had trembled as he tied the mask behind his own son's head, but he didn't speak out, didn't say _stop._

After Claudio's death, Snape decided to stop chosing sides. Let the sides chose him, instead.

***

**Meanwhile...**

"...Time for plan B," Hermione said, rebelting her white robes, which were, Snape realised, not robes at all but a long, slim coat of sorts. She wore a pair of ridiculously tall white boots to match, and the right one tapped impatiently as he once again failed at giving her an adequate verbal response. He suspected she thought him frightfully rude by this point--not that it mattered...'frightfully rude' was more or less his usual _modus vivendi, after all. Though at this particular moment he wasn't actually _trying_ to be rude; no, he was too paralysed with images of himself, forcefully parting a crowd of Muggles while screaming his bloody head off. Reduced to a mentally disturbed uncle who nances about in a black nightdress. Perfect._

Hermione sighed and rubbed at her temple, as if she were suffering the beginnings of a headache. Snape scowled. The sigh-and-massage-temple tactic had been one of his own classic gestures--one that had come in especially handy whenever a grind like Hermione had started in on a long suffering, know-it-all diatribe during potions. He had the distinct sense that she was simultaneously mocking him and having a fair bit of revenge in the process.

"Yes, a plan," he said quietly, allowing a dangerous note to enter his voice. "You are never without an _ingenious _plan, are you Miss Granger? But tell me...how many of your plans have actually met with success?"

She blinked, a hint of shadow falling over her face. "What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that I find it...._suspect..._that you, a Ministry employee, arrive here at the Leaky Cauldron stuffed tight as a drum with useful facts, then flash your hellcat temper by _slapping _me at the breakfast table, and then just as quickly insist on helping me keep a look-out for Draco Malfoy...." He stared at her shrewdly, then continued, "...who we both know is one of your least favourite individuals--second only to me, perhaps."

She grimaced. "Actually, I'd put the two of you at a dead heat, if you want to know the truth."

"Not especially. What I do want to know is...what's in this for you? Has Fudge promised you a promotion? A few extra galleons a week? A new office next to his, with a fine view of--"

"Piss off!" she cut in, her face reddening. "I don't even work for the Ministry anymore--I haven't for over a year! Didn't you hear me when I said I'd rather attend beauty school than take orders from Fudge?" She glared at him and he realised that no, he hadn't heard her say that at all. When had that been? Back when he was drowning in his own self-pity, he supposed. Minerva McGonagall was right--there was really nothing quite so humbling as having a former student witness your precarious walk between nervous breakdown and paranoid delusion.

Looking annoyed by his silence, Hermione continued, "Fudge and his dirty shits fired me, as a matter of fact. Dumped all my things in a box and sent me packing. And no one would hire me after that...even though I'd been responsible for all that progress in computer-cauldron hybridisation , and head girl at Hogwarts on top of that. And had excellent references from Arthur Weasley besides...._but no one cared! _I was fucking blacklisted..." as she spoke, her chin began to tremble. Snape saw her bite down hard to fight it, her throat constricting as she grimaced again. Before he could stop it, he felt a small grin develop on his face.

"What?" She demanded, balling up her fists. "You think it's funny? Right chuffed that a know-it-all like me ended up jobless and desperate, is that it?"

"I don't find it funny," he said, "It's just that you still haven't answered my question...."

She quieted, her face still red, but her breath calming. "Yes...you want to know why I'm interested in Malfoy. As you should have guessed, I'm here for Dumbledore.  And for the Order.  Indirectly, anyway."

He frowned. "How so?"

She started to speak, but closed her mouth abruptly, looking over her shoulder at the cluster of people who were gathering at the dining tables for breakfast. "Can we go to my room first, please?" She asked, making a subtle gesture at the back staircase.

"Very well," he said, nodding stiffly.

Her room ended up being directly adjacent to his own, and when Snape saw a number of strange objects laid out on her dresser--including something that looked suspiciously like a _drill_--he shot her a dirty look. "Were you intending to spy on me, Miss Granger?" he asked, not bothering to veil his displeasure.

She shrugged, looking not a bit sorry. "I had to know that implant charm if I wanted to penetrate the magic that now separates Draco from the wizarding world."

"Right," he mumbled, longing to say something scathing, but finding that the words were just beyond his tongue.

She sighed and flopped down on the edge of the bed, reaching back to untie the ribbon that held back her hair. She twined the scrap of fabric between her fingers several times over--a nervous gesture if he'd ever seen one--and he inched toward the door, slightly on edge himself. He hadn't expected a confession, but it looked as if Hermione was coaching herself up for one hell of a delivery.

"Remember when Harry never arrived for our Seventh year?" She asked in a single, rushed breath, then followed it with a low, strangled laugh that didn't suit her at all. "Yes, I imagine you do, relieved as you must have been to be rid of him."

"I do remember," he confirmed, his voice dry.

"That's good. That's good that you remember," she said, still absent-mindedly fiddling with the ribbon. "Because it seemed as if everyone else chose to forget him. Ron and I were...well, we were broken....but to everyone else it was just...." She trailed off and glanced up, her face white. She smiled uneasily. "....but that's beside the point," she finished lamely. "After the Ministry fired me, Ron and I opened up a private investigation business. Not the real thing, mind you--though we do take on cases from time to time just for show. We told Dumbledore that we'd help out the Order if they ever needed us, and last week he gave us news of Draco's upcoming Exile...this of course made us wonder if Draco wasn't really being released from Azkaban for other, more sinister reasons, so we decided to look into the matter. That's all there is to it, really...."

Snape paused, shifting slightly on the balls of his feet. The Granger girl was only telling him half truths; she'd been on the verge of spilling something...something immense, no doubt...and then she had looked up and seen who she was about to spill to: the big, bad former potions master. And now he had the diluted, Cliff-notes version of events. Fine...she wanted him to swallow? He would gladly do so.

_I don't want to hear her stupid, 'poor-me-I-was-so-lost-without-Potter' sob story, anyway._

Hermione stood up and gathered her reddish hair into a neat ponytail, re-tying the ribbon. When she dropped her arms and gave Snape a false, over-bright smile, he was struck with the nagging thought that her hair was all _wrong_. Almost everything about her seemed....too perfect. The white boots...the crisp white jacket. It was almost as if she were in--

"Disguise. That's what we need," she said, bending over and pulling her wand from the narrow column of her boot, shaking it a few times as if to warm it up.

"What." Snape said flatly, not bothering to make the word into a question. "A disguise for _me?_It won't happen.  Find yourself a Metamorphmagus if you want to play dress-up."

Hermione made a sour face. "We still need to find Draco, you realise. And there's no way in cold frozen hell that I'm taking you out into Muggle London looking like _that_," she said, pointing in the general direction of his...well, his entire self, really.

"Our window of opportunity for tracking Draco Malfoy has passed, Miss Granger," Snape intoned; an uneasy nausea was beginning to toy at his insides.

"Leave Draco to me," she said, looking entirely unconcerned. "For now...let's get you out of those robes, shall we?"

Snape stared. Then he shook his head slightly, like a man who suspected his ears were broken.

"Well? We're not playing peep show here," Hermione barked, looking increasingly impatient. "This is a matter of business...so get to stripping, if you please."

He smiled crookedly. _Very well then.__ Let's give the girl what she wants. _With clumsy gusto he unbuttoned the front of his robes, tearing his arms loose from the sleeves and pulling the entire garment off in a flourish. Then he wriggled out of his white undershirt and slung it onto the bed. Finally, he unbuckled his trousers and swept them down to his ankles, leaving them puddled at his feet as he crossed his arms over his bare chest, simultaneously raising a single eyebrow in the process.

Hermione stared.

_That's right, Miss Granger. Have a good long look. The sooner I scare you off, the sooner I can go back to hiding out in my room with my new best friend...brandy._

"You wear long johns?" She asked, tapping her wand against her thigh. "Bottle green long johns?"

"Yes," he said, his triumphant smirk wavering a bit. "You were expecting...?"

"I don't know. Certainly not long johns." She shook her head vaguely. "And when I said 'take off your robes', I meant _only _your robes." She stalked over to the bed and picked up his undershirt, balled it up and tossed it to him. "Put that back on at once."

With deliberation, Severus slipped the tee-shirt back over his head, then deftly bent over and hauled up his trousers. "Now what?" he asked, allowing a note of boredom to enter his voice.

She appraised him for a second or two. "Black trousers...white tee-shirt. Thankfully with no annoying, pro-Slytherin statements stamped on it. Okay, this will do," she said, nodding with satisfaction.

"I'll get cold," said Severus loftily, running his palms over his bare arms as if already chilled.

She frowned and fetched his robes from the bed, and with a single wand-wave transfigured the garment into a short, zip-up jacket. "Here," she said, rudely throwing the jacket in the direction of his face. "It's not couture, but it'll do."

"Anything else?" Is my footwear inappropriate? What about my _socks_, Miss Granger? Would you like to inspect them as well?"

"The boots aren't a problem," she said, barely glancing down at them. "Your hair, on the other hand..." and at this she quite clearly wrinkled her nose.

"What about it?" Suddenly self-conscious, he reached back and lifted a hank of it from his shoulders. His hair had been the same for the last fifteen or so years; Professor Sprout had forced a trim on him every term, but his last had been several months ago.

"When was the last time you washed it?" She asked, her tone oddly polite despite the fact that she was still quirking her nose.

"Last night," he said, unmasking the full boon of his glare.

"Ah well..." she shifted uncomfortably. "Everyone's pores are different...even in, ah, the scalp area. I just think...." She took a step closer, half-circling him, "...if we hacked off some of this unnecessary length, you might look a little less...well..."

"Quit your hedging," he snapped, experiencing a slight shudder of humiliation. "I might look a little less what, exactly?"

"Less spooky," she finished, wincing slightly.

"Fine, Miss Granger. Do what you will. I'm willowsap in your hands. Mould me into the very image of the Muggle you imagine lurking within me...let's just get this over with fast."

_Because I don't think I can go back to my room now, brandy or not. Because within the hour Fudge is likely to come through my fire and send me off on a new and entirely ridiculous wild goose chase. Because at this point I don't really care. And because the only thing I _do _care about is the fact that _I don't really care_..._

"Are you sure?" she asked, blinking nervously.

"No. But do what you will," he sighed, collapsing into the nearest chair, and she beamed like a child who just been given permission to crayon obscene words all over the walls.

Within a few minutes she was brandishing her wand at the tangled length of his hair. And she wasn't taking off a neat half-inch, as Sprout always had. Instead, she squinted with the concentration of one grooming a stubborn jungle plant. "Really, you won't regret this," she said. "This arse-length drape marks you as either a weirdo or a hopeless fashion victim. And our goal here is to look perfectly ordinary, Snape. Yet hopefully different enough so that if Draco Malfoy _does _spot you, he won't immediately high-tail it in the other direction."

"I'd rather he did high-tail it, if you don't mind..." Snape murmured, shaking bits of loose hair from his ears.

Hermione let out an audible snort. "You seemed quite eager to catch up with him this morning, if I recall."

"It must have been my pavlovian urge to deduct house points resurfacing," he retorted. He noted with mild interest that Hermione had stopped calling him 'professor'. It seemed that she had developed a pointed disdain for her elders since her seventh year, though Snape supposed that her seventh year had, in fact, been partly responsible in instigating this particular change in attitude.  Potter himself may have disappeared, but his anger and cynicism had been left behind to thrive inside his best friends.

"You're all set," she announced, eyeing her own rather swift and unceremonious handiwork.

Snape stood and walked uncertainly toward the vanity mirror, long clumps of hair raining from his shoulders as he did so. The man who stared back at him had uneven, chin-length hair, so straight that it had a slight fly-away effect. The look wasn't far-off from what he'd sported back during his own Hogwarts years, and he cringed to see that having less hair around his face had the unfortunate side-effect of making his face that much more noticeable. Noticing Hermione's curious glance in the mirror behind him, he straightened up and shrugged nonchalantly.

"No one will look twice at you now," she assured, handing him his new jacket.

He nodded tersely. No one ever looked at a doomed man twice.

***

**Back at the Pink Bishop...**

Draco couldn't take his eyes off Potter's cowboy hat. _Why the fuck is he wearing a cowboy hat? Why!?_ his mind babbled incoherently, all the while dimly aware that his jaw was slung open like a Venus fly trap.

"Ha," Varda said, smiling with very white teeth. "Should I leave you two alone?"

Draco shut his mouth at once, but Potter only grinned absently, his brow faintly wrinkled in confusion. "This is the bloke who wants the phone?" He asked Varda, thumbing in Draco's direction.

Varda shrugged. "So he said."

"Yes," Draco blurted, stepping forward. "Phone," he mumbled thickly. "If you don't mind, that is?"

"Not a bit," Potter said, looking quite businesslike. "Varda will show you to my office. No long distance, if you don't mind."

"Okay," Draco said, his voice barely above a whisper. Potter disappeared through the building's door, Varda's bag in hand, not bothering to shoot him a second glance. _How is this possible? _Draco swallowed thickly. He had recognized Harry Potter at once. Beyond the obvious green eyes, even his walk--the light, careless trot of a former Quidditch seeker--had betrayed his identity. But Potter hadn't recognized him in return at all. Draco didn't know whether to be relieved or nervous...but so far, nervous was winning out.

"Are you coming in or what?" Varda said, reaching out to tug at his shirt sleeve. "I'm Varda, by the way. Varda Venezuela...and before you ask, no, it's not my real name, but that's what the boys call me. Got it?"

"Yes," he said dumbly, allowing Varda to steer him into the dark building. She held on to his elbow as they walked, and Draco's eyes widened as they stepped out of a back room and into...another world.

There were lights everywhere. Flashing, whizzing lights, like something from a Filibusters' fireworks show, and music was _pounding _the walls and floors. The large building was bathed in neon but seemed mostly empty, though a handful of men were running around frantically in various states of undress, most of them shouting questions at Potter himself, who stood behind a long counter lined with glasses and liquor bottles.

"Radney wore my loincloth without asking again. I can't wear a used loincloth onstage! Would you please tell that little snot to quit stealing from wardrobe?" a very tan, very muscled man complained loudly, shaking a scrap of fringed leather in the air as he did so.

"So wear your hot pants instead," Potter said, not bothering to look up from the paperwork he was studying.

"But it's Cowboys and Indians night! I can't wear hot pants and be an Indian!"

At Draco's side, Varda was giggling. "Don't look so shocked, poppet. You did know this was a queer club, right?"

"Not exactly," Draco stammered, trying to mould his face into an _Oh yes, I attend queer clubs all the time_ sort of expression. Problem was, he wasn't entirely sure what a queer club was...but he was fast getting the idea. A man much taller than him walked by in leather chaps, his bare arse hanging out the back, and shouted "Hey Billy, where in buggery is my bronzing cream?" over the deafening music.

"Oh, I know 'Cowboys and Indians' isn't exactly culturally-sensitive," Varda said, fanning her hand in a dismissive sort of way. "But you should see my Pocahontas number. Or _Poke-a-hot-ass_, as the boys call it..."

Draco made an incomprehensible sound in his throat.

"Ah, here we are," Varda said, pulling open a door near the bar where Potter was reading paperwork. "Harry's office."

Draco stepped inside the sparse, white room. "Harry? Your boss is named Harry?" he asked, keeping his tone casual.

"Of course," she said, shutting the door behind them, the music cutting off abruptly. "Most people just call him H, though. He lets me call him Harry 'cos we go a long way back, we do..." She leaned against the wall and flipped her hair over one shoulder, reaching up and stretching in a way that was at once careless and seductive, her generous breasts rising as she did so. Draco shifted nervously and reached for the telephone on the desk.

"Oh," he said, pausing with the receiver held half-way to his ear. "I'm not sure what...number I need to push."

"You don't know your own mother's phone number?"

"Not off hand," Draco said, his teeth gritted.

She grinned; not a sly, seductive grin, but a goofy grin that revealed a tiny smear of red lipstick on her two front teeth. "I don't know my mother's phone number either," she laughed. "She could be dead and buried, for all I know."

"Um..."

"Don't sweat it, blondie. I'll call up information for you." She snatched the phone from his hand and used a very long fingernail to tap out a number that Draco couldn't quite catch. "What's your mother's name?"

"Narcissa Malfoy."

She made a face. "Weird name."

"Uh...if you say so, _Varda_."

She laughed heartily. "Touché," she said, then frowned, listening intently at whatever she was hearing through the phone receiver. "There's no listing..."

"Oh..." Draco felt disappointed, but then again, what had he expected? Now that he thought about it, his mother certainly didn't own a talk-box--telephone--so why had he counted on using one to get in touch with her in the first place? It seemed like a dumb-yet-desperate idea, in retrospect. But now he was warm and, thanks to the ear-splitting music, not quite so sleepy and incoherent. And there were no longer strange crowds of Muggles swarming around him...just this Varda woman, Potter, and a bare-cheeked man in cowboy chaps. Compared to the rest of his day, things were looking up.

Varda slowly lowered the telephone receiver, staring at him in a calculated way. "Do you have anywhere to go?" she asked, her voice low and brittle.

"No," he said. To lie seemed pointless.

She nodded. "I thought as much. Look...we've had your kind here before. Boys who've been kicked out by their fathers for crimes no greater than owning girlie knickers and a hot pink lipstick. Trust me...you're not alone," she said, reaching out and placing a firm hand on each of his shoulders.

"I'm not alone," Draco repeated hollowly, silently wishing that he could disappear.

"Right," she said, patting him in a motherly way. "So let's see if H. can't find a place for you tonight, shall we?"

"I'm not so sure that--"

"Oh, pfft..." she made that now-familiar hand wave again, hushing him with a single gesture. "H. may talk trash, but deep down he's a softie. He'll let you polish the martini glasses if you really want to repay him. Just let me do all the talking, all right?"

Draco thought fast, but not fast enough. The office door swung open and Potter's ten-gallon hat rounded the corner just a few beats before the rest of him appeared, a clutch of paperwork still hand.

"Harry!" Varda beamed, widening her eyes for effect.

"Ah...how did that call turn out?" Potter asked, his mouth smiling but the rest of him unreadable.

"It didn't," Draco said.

_And why don't you recognize your fucking arch-nemesis when he's standing right in front of you, Potter? Or are you actually as daft as you've always seemed?_

"That's right," Varda continued. "And I'm not really sure our little lost sheep wants to find his way home, if you know what I mean...." She nodded in Draco's direction, and he suppressed a private scowl. The woman was as subtle as a badly-timed Bludger.

Potter squinted at him, and Draco felt an uneasy shiver lace its way down his spine. He'd been on the receiving end of this stare before, usually just prior to Quidditch matches, and in his experience nothing good had ever come of being measured up by Harry Potter. Draco's own assaults might have always been issued by mouth, but Potter had an uncanny knack for speaking volumes with his eyes, even while the rest of him remained perfectly expressionless.

"So you've been kicked out by your parents," Potter confirmed. "I might have known...."

Draco mentally slapped himself--_Are you BLIND Potter?--_while still managing to gaze down at his shoes in a I'm-frightened-and-have-nowhere-else-to-run sort of way.

"Well, you must be at least sixteen..."

_At least?! I have a BEARD, you idiot. And just where are your glasses, anyway?_

"....troubles with your father, perhaps?"

Draco looked up sharply. Potter was pacing the room, re-arranging paperwork as he spoke. He moved self-assuredly, in a manner that prompted Draco to assess the way in which he'd filled out since their sixth year. He wasn't any taller, not really, but he would certainly never be mistaken for a sixteen-year-old. Then again, Draco was garbed in prison clothes that more or less resembled a toddler's pyjama-ensemble, while Potter got to wear the bloody kick-arse cowboy hat. Some things just weren't fair.

"Blast, I need to get into wardrobe," Varda announced, studying the clock on the wall. "Hope you'll be at my show tonight, sweets." She stood up and ruffled Draco on the head before exiting the office.

Now it was just him and Potter.

Not that Potter seemed to notice. He was too busy rifling through a file folder on the desk, tapping a fountain pen against his chin. "If you need a place to sleep there's a couple of cots in the dressing room that you can use," he said, studying his fingernails. "But we don't let anyone stay longer than a week...it's become a house rule ever since Radney showed up and never bothered to leave."

Right. Radney was the loincloth thief.

Draco rose to his feet, uneasy. "Is there a place I could wash up? I...haven't had a bath in a while."

Potter finally looked up. "The toilets are straight to the back. There's a shower in the dressing room, but Varda will be using it right now."

"Okay," Draco said, moving towards the door.

"One more thing, Malfoy..."

Draco froze. Swallowed. Or tried to.

Suddenly scared as hell, his balls drawn up so tightly into his abdomen he thought he might soon taste them, he pivoted around to face Potter, absurdly wishing that he had a burly Crabbe or Goyle at his side. If Potter's expression had been unreadable before, it certainly wasn't now: Potter glared at him, his cheeks faintly burnished, the fountain pen now clutched in his white first.

"You're wearing Azkaban grey..." he said, his voice a shade softer than Draco was prepared for. "I don't know how you got here, or what you've done, but the minute you piss me off will be the same minute I stop showing you feigned hospitality. You follow?"

"..."

"Well, do you?"

"Yes," Draco said, wishing his voice didn't sound so small to his own ears. Potter immediately dropped his eyes back to his paperwork, and there was a stony quality to his silence that sent Draco tip-toeing towards the door, horrified to realise he was cowering away from Potter as if expecting him to lay one of those old jelly-legs hexes on him at any moment. A wave of harsh, hammering music buffeted him as soon as he opened the door, but he welcomed it...practically rejoiced in its ability to obliterate even the most uncomfortable of silences.

Once in the men's toilets, Draco padded across the yellow tiles and found himself facing a mirror for the first time in weeks. Or was it months? He'd lost count. Like the rest of the club, the bathroom was flooded in hot pink lights, and Draco's face looked so stretched and red in its glow that he had to hold up his fingers and wave to himself, just to be sure that the face staring back at him was his own.

It was. He inched forward, pressing his hands against the sink for support. He was amazed that Potter had managed to recognize him at all; he was frightfully thin, and though pale, as usual, was so matted in dirt that he appeared grey from head to toe, his hair falling like a sheet of fine dust over his brow and ears. His eyes appeared larger than usual, and they glimmered strangely in the neon ether of the club. Reflected in them he saw a veritable smorgasbord of new and unfortunate emotions: anxiety, surprise, and, worst of all, clouded doubt. He stared at himself silently, hoping the mirror might offer a well-timed ego boost.

No such luck. Muggles had to rely on their own eyes for self-preservation, it seemed.

Behind his left shoulder, though, a sliver of blue caught Draco's eye. He turned. There was a giant-sized poster of the Rivera hanging on the wall, a rather gauche, over-done scene depicting the white sands and hazy Mediterranean, though most of the water was blocked out by several flexing men garbed in skimpy swimwear. Draco reached out and touched the poster; it was covered in glass, and he was disappointed when the swimsuited men didn't part at the sight of his approach. He wished they would move so he could see the water. So blue...

He snapped back and pulled away from the poster. What was he doing? The confines of the bathroom were making him retreat into his head in a manner similar to the effects of Azkaban itself. He went back to the sinks and splashed icy water on his face.

_There now. You won't be so bad once you've been cleaned up. _

He started to reach for the soap dispenser, then paused. Why bother to do this the hard way? Potter was in the vicinity, and was sure to have his wand handy. A cleansing spell or two and he'd be back in good form.

His mood slightly lifted, Draco sauntered back to Potter's office and, without bothering to knock, let himself in. Potter was just as he'd left him: slumped over his desk as if he had something important to do.

Hearing Draco enter, Potter looked up sharply, then frowned. "I thought you were getting cleaned up?"

"Yes, well..." Draco started, clearing his throat. "If you can patch me up with a cleansing spell, Potter, I'll be on my way and out of your hair. Mind giving the clothes a scrub-over, too? Had an incident with a rubbish bin..."

Potter tipped back in his chair a bit, inclining his head so that Draco could make out the flintish quality of his eyes. "You want me to what?"

"Give me a cleansing spell? Oh...right. Will you _please_ give me a cleansing spell, Potter?

"No." Harry rolled his chair over to a filing cabinet and stuffed his paperwork inside, then slammed the drawer shut with a loud metallic clang.

"What? Why not?" Draco's mind boggled. It was true that he and Potter had never been on good or even neutral terms--not even close. But what had happened to that Gryffindor sense of generosity? Or loyalty--whatever it was that made them act in that Gryffindor-ish way. And why was Potter willing to let Draco kip on a cot in the wardrobe room, but unwilling to spray him with a weeks' worth of cleansing spells?

"Because I already offered you use of the facilities," Potter replied, his face irritatingly expressionless.

"But a spell is so much faster...I won't tell your little nancing friends that you're a wizard, if that's what you're worried about."

Harry shook his head. "I'm not worried."

"Why?" Draco asked, fighting the urge to shout. Why did Potter have to be calm when he wasn't? For that matter, why did Potter have to be _here_, in this horrible Muggle world, fully comfortable and polishing bar glasses for a living, when he was supposed to be off in some secret training facility, battling Hungarian Horntails and learning the secrets to deflecting _Avada__ Kedavra_ or something equally preposterous? Draco's universe had been thoroughly shaken when his father had died, and it had damn near crumbled when he'd been sentenced to Azkaban. But the fact that Harry Potter was living in London and working with men who wore fringed loincloths--not even clean ones, at that--suggested that something was profoundly _wrong_ with the world.

"It wouldn't matter if you told them I was a wizard," Harry said, shrugging. "Because I'm not. Not anymore."

***

The girl was still polite enough to open doors for her elders, apparently. She asked him if he was coming and he nodded. Words were beyond him these days, it seemed. Downstairs there were faces, a blur of them lifting from breakfast bowls and gazing out at them as they crossed the length of the pub, heading for the doors that led to Charing Cross Road. A loud rustle of fabric sounded--him zipping up his jacket. He missed the billow and swish of robes, felt slow and clumsy without them, but allowed his feet to fall into time with the girl's despite this. No Apparition, she said. Walking meant they still stood a chance of running into a certain blond Slytherin. The girl twitched her fingers in a come-hither gesture, leading him to the street. White sunlight flooded out most of the details.

_"Severus, do you know how much Judas was paid for his betrayal?"_

_"No," Snape admits. There is light in the room only because of the fire, enchanted to cast cold flames, platinum-coloured and smelling of sharp, pungent anise._

_"Thirty pieces of silver," Voldemort says, his own voice low and rusty, as if from extended disuse. Snape has no reason to doubt this claim; he's been told of the Dark Lord's childhood spent in a Christian orphanage. He had rejected the Muggle world that raised him, then later sought to conquer the wizarding world into which he fit but would never truly belong to. Slytherin blood tainted by the blood of lies. Dumbledore might have called it irony, that Slytherin's heir would himself be of half-blood, a child that the great founder himself would have rejected. _

_From his position a few metres away, Snape can detect a discernable human emotion struggling its way to the surface of that inhuman face. He tries to imagine the face of the orphan he'd been, once upon a time, but finds that he can't even begin. . . _

_Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain._

They walked until his feet began to blister, until she herself looked weary and ready to collapse. She suggested they take the train, and he found he had no reason to argue. A train was a train, whether fuelled by magic or science, and he hadn't known about the dim, watery lighting, or that the odour of other humans would be so overpowering. He began to sweat, moisture trickling down the slope of his newly-bare neck. The girl stood calmly between two businessmen, swapping a political joke with the one nearest her own age. She smiled at the punch line but didn't laugh, her eyes lightly skipping back to his own as if to update herself on the state of his emotional weather. She looked at him a lot, as if on edge or prepared for a scolding. She seemed to think them alike: both exiled from their professions, both equally wrapped up in the hunt for a meddlesome boy who wasn't worth half the trouble he left in his path.

But they weren't alike. He wanted to tell her this as she leaned against the political jokester, suppressing a laugh with the back of her hand. She would always have this world waiting for her: a world of stuffy and crowded trains, where ills were cured by pills rather than spells, and where magic was nothing more than a few buttons and levers obscured by a velvet curtain.

_The price for betrayal comes in pain rather than silver. This Snape learns as he bleeds--not from any outer wound, but on the inside. Always on the inside. Voldemort is working the truth out of him bit by bit--literally. He clamps his teeth down, willing his tongue to plug up his throat, to make words impossible, to empty out his mind. But it seems there's a spell for everything. _

_He gives. Tells. And now Voldemort knows the truth behind Dumbledore's Order: that it is the cover for a resistance that exists to expose what the Ministry--those men who prefer to keep the public blind to the Dark Lord's growing threat--will not.  He comes close, so very close, to admitting what Voldemort must already know is true:  that the Order is Harry Potter's protector.  Snape thinks it may be only his lingering hatred of James that shrouds this fact from Voldemort's penetrating sweep of his mind.   _

_"Why, Severus?" Voldemort asks, rising. "What did the old man give you that I couldn't?" _

_Snape__ keels over and spits blood. From here he can see the wizened soles of Karkaroff's feet, the toes curled over as if the dead man still shudders in agony. _

_"He gave me the same things you gave me," Snape croaks. "But he never expected to own me."_

_Voldemort's__ pacing slows, then stops. "You lay there in your own blood and tell me that you are not owned?" A white hand reaches down, tipping Severus's chin upward. "The Severus I knew wouldn't have pledged his loyalties to Albus Dumbledore. Yes...he must own you. Some way...somehow."_

_"Guilt owns me. The old man doesn't."_

_The white fingers skip away, retreating once again to the folds of muted-red robes. There is a faint snort of amusement; the Dark Lord has heard Snape's words and has promptly dismissed them._

_"That old man comes later," Voldemort says. "For now...you will bring me the boy." _

The one thing he had figured out about her was this: Whenever she said she was looking for _him_, she really meant Harry, not Draco. He verified this in the way that she tilted her ear toward the voices of strangers, and the manner in which she scanned her peripheral vision, as if expecting his familiar face to exist there, its shadowy presence somehow overlooked until just now.

_Tell me, where dwell the thoughts forgotten until we call them forth?_

He wanted to tell her to give up. That there was no use looking back for what's lost. Harry Potter would not be the boy that she remembered.

**********************************

Angst: revel in it!

Snape's thought, "Tell me, where dwell the thoughts forgotten until we call them forth" is actually a variation on a line from "The Visions of the Daughters of Albion" by William Blake.

Aja's chapter 13 of "Love Under Will" also mentions The Crucible as a source for student witches and wizards studying Muggle perception of witchcraft. It's mere coincidence that I zeroed in on a similar theme. No mooching off of the lovely Aja is intended!

**Thanks go out to: **Mysti_195, Azile, Angell, Sheron, Calypso, Krisis, Sirylu, Primrose Burrows, DracosLilSlythyChica, tess74, Celestinne, Sphere's Delight, JessicaCMalfoy, BlackPanther16, Christy, Nmissi, Nichneven, mystril, Trixie, Franzeska, Zed, MiniMe, BaronessVonLooney, Emerald Snake, PhoenixRoseofHope, Earthquake, and GMTH for their encouraging reviews.

Special acknowledgement to WvB for niffling this story. (read: thank you!!)

I owe my sanity and soul to Tien, Susanna, and Resmiranda for their feedback and support. Susanna especially for her help with the Latin.

Yes, I am a big t00by schlub who is indebted and thankful to lots of people. Ya'll rock my block


	7. Chapter Six: Familiar Places, Faces

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter 6: Familiar Places, Faces**

Funnily enough, Harry Potter's day had started off on a completely ordinary--even routine--note. He'd woken up around noon (last night, Sunday, had been amateur night, and as usual he had stayed late after closing to finish the previous week's books), had his shower and headed out to the _Patisserie_ Valerie, a café not far from his two-room flat. There he read the papers, indulged in strong coffee and picked his way through a couple of fresh croissants. He always read the papers religiously, dimly aware all the while that he really had no interest whatsoever in politics or current events. No, for him reading the papers was a bit like making rounds. He kept an eye open for coverage on any mysterious disappearances, any criminals claiming to not remember whatever illegal acts they had committed, and any dead bodies that had turned up without a mark on them, as if the victim had suddenly taken mind to simply....cease living. All the hallmarks of unforgivable curses, in other words.

He tried to tell himself that he didn't care; that he was in no position to get involved, anyway. But even though he knew better, his careful combing of the papers continued, and had been going on ever since his twentieth birthday.

Only twenty. He felt ages older.

He wasn't sure what the trigger had been, what had sent him to the papers searching out telltale acts of magic, but he supposed it had something to do with the classic Vespa Spirit motorscooter Varda had given him as a birthday present. Harry didn't care for automobiles, preferring to walk or take the underground, but Varda was continually irritated by his inability to arrive anywhere on time, and had given him the scooter in hopes that he might actually use it to travel from place to place. Minutes and hours were conveniences for some, but not for Harry, who rarely kept track of the days of the week, let alone the time of the day. Harry thought he would have preferred a motorcycle to a piddly, rubber-band engined scooter, but the Vespa had a certain freewheeling charm that he found irresistible, and when he took it out for his first spin he had delighted at the dizzying sensation of wind against his face and hair. For the first time in nearly three years, a quick, pained thought shot through his mind:

_I wish I had my Firebolt._

His reaction to the foreign thought had been mostly calm and adult, even though there was a distant, thirteen-year old's voice crying out in the recesses of his subconscious: _My Firebolt! How could I have forgotten my _Firebolt_? How?! _Harry managed to stifle the child-like voice and dismounted the Vespa, staring down at it quizzically; its chunky, colourful lines were nothing when compared to the sleek, aerodynamic body of a broomstick. He _had _owned a Firebolt once, that much he was sure of. Where was it now?

He had shrugged the question away. Better not to wonder about such things.

And so the Firebolt hadn't crossed his mind again, though from that day on there were occasional smells and sights that caused him to give pause, to prowl through his memory in search of something specific--something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was like waking up from a fascinating dream and struggling to remember the nonsensical details that refused to surface: the smell of fire that conjured up a bird with red plumage; the sight of a black dog that sent his hopes soaring; even a rat, a ridiculous rat, rummaging through the back alley rubbish, pummeled at his heart with painful flip-flops. In these moments it seemed the world surrounding him was harsh and wrong, and there were whispers...whispers in his mind of something important he'd left behind. But he wouldn't let himself delve any further. He shut his wandering thoughts off, easy as stopping a leaky tap.

It had worked for a time, too; he somehow ignored his own careful study of the newspapers and conducted his life as usual. He still preferred walking to the Vespa, and Varda herself had taken to borrowing it for her own transportation; he often wondered if that had been her intent all along, to buy him a gift that she knew she was bound to get use out of. Not to say that Varda was selfish, but as a person she was...well, so larger-than-life that it was impossible, even for her--_especially_ for her, maybe--to separate thoughts of herself from any thoughts regarding others. And there was nothing shameful in that, not really.

That's why he wasn't really surprised when, after giving up on the croissants and newspapers, he'd exited the café to find the Vespa gone--nothing but a slick oil patch marring the spot where he usually parked it. He briefly wondered if would really hurt Varda to take two extra minutes to jog in the café and actually ask permission to borrow the Vespa, but managed to shake his annoyance off. He was planning to walk today, anyway.

And so he walked, the last vestiges of autumn leaves crunching cheerfully under his shoes. It was mid-October; soon the sleet and freezing rain would come and the leaves would turn soggy, clogging the gutters and windowsills like a plague. Some unconscious part of him realised that his daily walks were reserved to a narrow triangle of streets between SoHo, Covent Garden, and Leicester Square, with the occasional jaunt down to Piccadilly Circus or Regent Park. His feet never led him north-east of Greek Street, in the direction of that one area he preferred to keep as a hazy memory: Charing Cross Road. Certainly there had been times when he had longed to slip up that road again, just to see if anything had changed, or _hadn't _changed....but no. Memories were like windows: open one on a windy day and soon the others would burst free of their shutters, letting in the cold, the blinding, wintry sunlight. These same memories were becoming harder and harder to escape these days, too; they crept in like a persistent draught at first--something Harry could easily ignore up until a few weeks ago. Up until that early October night when the gates had been thrust open wide.

Harry had been walking from the Pink Bishop to his flat on Wardour Street, it was late at night (quite early in the morning, actually) and there was just enough moon to make the entire sky smoky with pearled light. The bite of autumn was in the air, and Harry tugged a knit stocking cap down over his ears; he was in the habit of wearing some form of headgear almost every day, not just because it tamed his uncontrollable, thick hair, but because it also covered his legendary scar. The scar had faded a bit in years past, as if echoing his own fading memories and magic, but would still make him immediately recognisable to any Wizard or Witch, of course, and even Muggles tended to ask him where he'd gotten such a wicked conk on the head. He usually blamed it on a motor accident, but he hated how mentioning the scar seemed to be the very thing that brought it to life; it would tingle at the edges, as if suddenly roused from a drowsy sleep. Covering it was the only way to forget it, really.

Harry savoured the anonymity of strolling down Old Compton Street at nearly four in the morning; there had been only light foot-traffic about, and once he rounded Wardour Street he found himself completely alone--until he met with the next block, anyway. It was there where he became distinctly aware of another, one of lighter step than himself, one who made no sound at all, actually, but who was nevertheless _there_ just the same. Harry could feel the other following him, trailing by ten or so metres, their breath silent and unhurried. Harry slowed his pace to a stop, then pivoted about, not terribly concerned. His eyes scanned the misty street, aided only by dim moonlight, and the spindly trees that separated pavement from shops suddenly seemed like a forest into which any criminal or thug could disappear and observe from a distance.

Anyone else might have been frightened or concerned by now, but Harry felt nothing more than mild curiosity, underpinned by the tiniest worry that the person watching him might in fact be someone he hadn't laid eyes on in years. Someone from Surrey, or someone from...

"Hello?" Harry called, his voice even and strong as he continued to scan the street for any signs of movement. "Who's there?"

He was met only with silence, but the person--whoever he or she was--was still there, waiting...watching.

"You're clearly following me for a reason," Harry said, his tone slightly exasperated. "Tell me what you want or let me on my way, if you don't mind."

There was a rustle. No...not a rustle, because there was actually no sound at all. But Harry could _see_ something, faint grey and whisper-thin, lurking just under a shop awning. It moved slightly, hedging before finally floating into full view.

"So it really is you, Harry Potter." The 'something' spoke, its voice rich and baritone, and as it drifted closer, it began to take on familiar shape: A man with aristocratic features...perfect posture....almost entirely see-though, but clearly possessing solid representation of form.

"Sir Nicholas?" Harry gasped; his lungs felt quite suddenly inadequate for breathing in the cold, damp air. "Nearly Headless Nick?"

"At your service," Nick said, giving him a jaunty bow that might have struck Harry as hilarious, under different circumstances.

"But...what are you doing here? In the middle of SoHo?" Harry reached up and tugged at his knit cap, unconsciously caressing his scar through the thick material. "Shouldn't you be at...at the castle?"

"So, Hogwarts has not completely left your mind then, has it?" Nick said, giving him a rather sad smile.

"Hogwarts? Left my mind? Well no, no of course not." Harry marvelled at the words that sprung from his own mouth. He hadn't said the name of his old school since the very day he had made the decision to leave it. That day at King's Cross, surrounded by close friends, a trunk full of spell books, his owl companion--surrounded by the only things that had mattered to him in this world. And he had fled from it, fled from Hogwarts, his school, his home....

"Are you sure of that, then?" Nick asked, quirking a ghostly eyebrow. "I followed you twice before down this street, you know, and you never once noticed my presence."

Harry's mouth fell open slightly. "When was that?" he asked, not quite believing.

"Last night and the night before last." Nick gave him a pained, sympathetic look as he spoke, and Harry felt a slight jolt run through his body at this; he realised, dimly, that all of his muscles were drawn up tight, as if he were seconds away from running at top speed.

"Well, it's a bit hard to notice a ghost in the shadows then, isn't it?" Harry said, determined not to let his voice betray the uneasiness he was feeling.

"Yes, but I was trailing you at only a metre's distance." Nick smiled crookedly, offering a shrug as if it were an apology. "Could have reached out and snatched the hem of your coat, if you want to know the truth."

Harry opened his mouth to speak, but it felt as if the words were trying to rise through a layer of gravel; they caught at the back of his throat and transformed his normally calm voice into a rusty, misused instrument. "Why?" he croaked. "Why were you following me?"

Nick shrugged. "Had a bit of news for you."

"News? For me?" For a moment he was so struck with puzzlement that he forgot to feel scared. "Is it from Dumbledore? Or Professor Lupin?"

_Holy shit._ When had he last said those names out loud? When was the last time he had even thought them silently to himself?

Nick studied what must have been a fast-growing expression of incredulity on Harry's face. "Ah," he said, giving him a slight nod. "Left some of yourself behind then, did you?"

"What?" Harry almost took a step back before catching himself. Instead, he stuffed both hands in his coat pockets, burrowing them in deep up to the wrists. He was all here, wasn't he? Yes...he thought he _was _all here--for the first time in quite a while, perhaps. His friends and co-workers--Billy and Radney, certainly Varda--had long ago realised that he spent much of his waking hours floating in a bubble, half-conscious of the goings-on around him, his feet on the ground but his head off in Never-Never Land. _H. is never quite all there_, Varda had once joked. The comment had amounted to teasing at the time, as most of his friends fancied him a dreamy, introspective sort--a tall (well, average), dark mystery man who spoke in intense monosyllables with a blazing cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, like someone who belonged in subtitled French noir. And he never had the heart to let them in on the truth...he really _wasn't _all there. Not at all.

But now he was; he didn't know how he knew this to be fact, but he did. He could feel it in the boyish joy that was travelling from the centre of his chest to the determined splay of his feet--joy at seeing Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor Ghost, a reminder of all those good things he'd once had: friends, a home, a broomstick, a name. And with that same thought came overwhelming terror. _A name. _He had introduced himself to how many people in the last three years? How many? _Hello, Harry Potter here_, he'd said...and the person he was greeting would just smile, perhaps lightly shake his hand, and then move along in the way people do when engaged in such mundane, everyday civilities. There had been no gasps; no goggling eyes raking over his forehead for a glimpse of the scar. For the last three years, being Harry Potter had been more or less like being any other random, insignificant person. But now: his name...his dreadful, inescapable name...the only name he'd ever had. He didn't know that he wanted it back.

"It happens sometimes...or so they say," Nick said, shrugging lightly. "Never thought it'd be the case with our Harry Potter, though."

Harry felt a brief flare of anger run through his body, his sinuses aching as he drew in a deep breath. _Our Harry Potter? _The burden of being the Wizarding World's international treasure was fast returning to him, bodily and otherwise. "Sometimes _what _happens?" he asked, an edge creeping into his voice.

"Children raised with Muggles have never had the easiest of times adjusting to our world. I imagine it's a bit of a dream come true at first--to learn that all of your desires and wishes can be conjured with the mere flick of a wand. It's those sort of fancies that fill the Muggle cinemas, is it not?"

_Sometimes...though the cinemas also feature drive-by shootings, animal torture, violence against women and minorities, and plenty of gratuitous titty shots_...Harry thought wryly, though he said nothing and only shrugged.

Nick mirrored his shrug and continued. "So, imagine the shock that these children must feel when they discover that wand-waving doesn't solve everything..." Here he paused and laughed in an off-hand sort of way, his translucent body shimmying slightly as he did so. "Though _you _don't have to imagine any such thing, I'm sure. You've lived it, after all. You know what it's like to discover that your fantasy-land is wrought with one or two very harsh realities. Realities that force you to choose sides and take part--quite different from the Muggle world where reality plays out at a safe distance, on the telly or in the papers, and where choosing sides is the task of politicians and bureaucrats alone."

Harry had willed himself not to snicker out loud. "If you don't mind my saying so, that's quite a limited view of the Muggle world that you've got there," he said, smiling crookedly. _There are choices to be made here as well, my ectoplasmic old friend. And they're just as unpleasant and even more immediate, like...do I spend this tenner on a hit or two of ecstasy, or buy myself a decent meal for once? Do I suck this dodgey fucker's cock so he'll let me kip in his shitty motel room for the night, or do I sleep in the park with the rest of the bums? Run away or throw a punch? Wash Uncle Vernon's auto or tell him to sod off? It's all about choosing the lesser of two evils--but at least there is still _some _bloody illusion of choice involved. _

Nick stared at him for a moment, taking in his expression. "Of course, my view on the matter is limited," he offered. "But living at the castle, I've seen generation after generation of Muggle-born and half-blood students struggle to find their place in our world. Some of them manage to find their way, but there have been others who have floundered, and others still who have fled completely."

Harry swallowed thickly. So...he was one of those who had fled. So what? It had been the right thing to do....the only thing, really. "What about Hermione?" he blurted out, unexpectedly. "She was a Muggle-born and no one could touch her skills...not a single pureblood ever matched her innate talent. She may have been Muggle-born, but she was destined for Witchcraft."

"Ah, yes...Miss Granger," Nick said, carefully nodding his off-balanced head. "She has faced her own set of problems in recent years."

"She has?" Harry asked, and the surprise in his voice was apparent even to his own ears. _Don't ask...don't ask why...don't ask what she's been up to. Don't ask what her problems were. Just don't ask._

"Talented as she may be, Miss Granger's Muggle-birth will always brand her as lowly in the eyes of some. To these same individuals--and I am sure you know whom I refer to--she will always be, in every way, a filthy little Mudblood."

A little spasm bucked through Harry's body, and he fought the urge to protest the ghost's words. Nick was speaking facetiously--that much was clear from the casual way he was dusting invisible lint from his coattails--but the old habit of sticking up for his friend was difficult to suppress. He couldn't help but be surprised at the way it had kicked into life inside of him; when had he last felt concern towards Hermione? When had he last even wondered how she was doing? Or how Ron was doing, for that matter? It had been...years.

_God, I suck._

He felt needling tears spring into his eyes--whether they were for himself or his friends, he didn't know...a fact which only served to make him feel shittier. He felt helpless, and it was a rare feeling for him, a feeling that he hated. And yet another part of him--that pubescent, awkward teenager's voice in his head, that voice that he associated with everything related to his past--was bleating _But I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to forget..._

Goddamn that voice! No wonder he'd gotten so good at ignoring it...ever since it had reared its greasy little head on the day he mounted that zippy Vespa scooter, whinging about that Firebolt like a toddler who'd lost his teddy-bear.

"News..." Harry gasped, wiping at his eyes furiously. "You said you had news for me. What is it, then?"

"Oh, right. Nearly forgot, I did." Nick snapped his fingers in a silent gesture. "You know..." he began, his expression going....well, _mistier_ was the only way to describe it. "I always liked you immensely, Harry. We ghosts are mostly a source of amusement for the students--giving them a fright on Halloween and suchlike--but you were always genuinely interested in the goings-on of the Spirit world. I never did thank you for attending my Deathday party...or for trying to get me accepted into the Headless Hunt. But I did so very much appreciate your efforts..."

Harry's cheeks went warm. Deathday party? He had no idea what Nick was talking about. The words created a hollow ring in the depths of his chest, as if they were weighted with significance, but did no fully compute. An event from his past that still lurked beneath the surface, perhaps. Many other events, in fact, were well-buried...all he had now were names and places, the simple basics.

"...and as such, I would like to return the favour, my boy," Nick continued, grinning broadly. "I came here with news...and a warning," he said, his grin fading at once. "We ghosts limit our involvement in the living world...many of us barely follow current events as it is, and even those of us who offer our services to the living are limited in the bodily sense. We could never help fight in a war, for example."

"Of course," Harry said, nodding dully. He wondered where this was going.

"But we ghosts can serve purpose in a spiritual sense. We know our own kind--the dead, that is--as well as you know your own. When you defeated Voldemort as a wee infant, Dumbledore came to me, asked me if Voldemort was indeed dead. Dumbledore is an old, old friend...and though it is considered somewhat taboo to do so, at the time I felt I owed him the truth. I told him that Voldemort was still alive. I would have felt it if he had gone, you see. All of us would have felt it." Nick paused, and perhaps would have caught his breath, if he had any to catch. "What I'm trying to say here, my boy, is that there's been a disruption--a deep fissure, of the most obscene and despicable sort--in the world or Ghosts and Spirits. And though it doesn't affect you now, it will."

"Affect me?" Harry asked, slightly unimpressed. "How? Has Voldemort finally been killed? Is his ghost planning to haunt me...or, is this like a wacky Dickensian thing? Are you my own personal Jacob Marley, come to warn me of my past, present, and future?"

Nick frowned. "I had hoped you would take this more seriously."

"Sorry," Harry offered, a bit contrite. "But your warning is a bit vague, you realise. Could you give me more specifics at all? A date or time of day...something I could jot down on the calendar?

Nick shook his head. "What is happening now has never happened before--not in any written history. It is a violation against both the living and the dead--a deep, profound violation...such that I cannot put it into accurate words, I'm afraid. I can only warn that you be on your toes, boy. Danger is afoot--no pun intended."

"Okay. Well, thanks. I mean...I'll be on guard."

"Good..." Nick said, giving him a succinct bow. "And Harry...?"

"Yes?"

"Here's hoping that the past will no longer elude you." Nick clasped his hands together and seemed to fade out a bit, the presence of his voice dimming by minute degrees.

Harry started, his knees nearly buckling. He wondered just how long the Gryffindor ghost had been following him around SoHo. Long enough to know that his current life bore absolutely no resemblance to his former, certainly. Or perhaps his private thoughts and musings were more transparent than he had previously thought; as transparent as Nick himself, even. "What do you know about the past?" He waved, calling out to the ghost's thinning form. And then, unable to stop himself, added: "I know I've forgotten...but I can't remember _why_ I've forgotten."

But the ephemeral body of the headless man continued to diffuse itself, unspooling like garden-variety London fog until the only discernable part of Nick that was left was his mouth--his smiling, wide-toothed mouth--not unlike the lingering grin of Alice's Cheshire cat. "It's easy to leave part of ourselves behind," the mouth said, chuckling slightly. "See?" Then it blinked away, gone.

Harry had expected Nick's words--his warning--to stay with him for weeks, sending him down alleys with tight nerves, his eyes jumping at harmless shadows. But after a good night's sleep, Harry woke and almost wondered if he hadn't imagined the whole thing. Three years ago, he'd experimented with a plethora of illegal substances during a thirteen month off-and-on stint of street living, and he supposed that seeing Nick _could _have been some kind of elaborate, extremely vivid flashback. As a child in Surrey, he'd been forced to sit through all the drug-scare films at school, the ones that featured teenagers leaping from windows as they imagined themselves eaten alive by the faint body hair that covered their arms. That sort of rubbish was a hell of a lot weirder than seeing ghosts, so he supposed anything was possible.

But he knew it was no hallucination a few weeks later, on that day that Varda borrowed his Vespa without asking, ended up crashing it into a post-box and getting a ticket for reckless driving, and then showed up for work forty-five minutes late, with one tattered, unshaven Draco Malfoy in tow.

A ghost from the past, indeed.

***

_He's going to kill me. _Hermione thought, slowly rubbing at her tired eyes. _No. First he will kill Snape. And then he will kill me. Kill me two or three times, just for good measure. _She dropped her hands into her lap and let out a heavy sigh. The moist, re-circulated air of the train was hard on the lungs after an afternoon of joy-riding (or joy_less_-riding, in this case), and Hermione knew she could not stall any longer. She had to go home, to the flat above Crookshanks' that she and Ron shared. And she had to bring Snape with her.

Unfortunately, Ron would be there, wrapping up his day's work. He would have left the Burrow by late morning, and would be expecting Hermione by suppertime. He would not, however, be expecting his former Potions Master. Hermione knew how Ron operated; he would see her inclusion of Snape as a betrayal, plain and simple. The world was a very black and white place for Ron: approve/disapprove; right/wrong; friend/foe...a place more punctuated by slashes than question marks. And that was Ron's Achilles' heel, really; he was loyal to an end, but never looked before he leapt, never asked questions before forming conclusions. He could also be a beast to reason with, but Hermione had the advantage of having spent a good portion of her childhood with him. If she could warn him of this big, nasty Snape-surprise ahead of time, she stood a slim chance of surviving the fallout.

Hermione shook her wrist lightly, just enough to free her wrist-watch from the cuff of her jacket. She tried to glance covertly around the train car, which was, unfortunately, stuffed to the gills with suburban commuters who had just clocked out and were now standing back to back and shoulder to shoulder, their eyes glazed over with fatigue. Oh well. Surely London was full of enough eccentrics that one young woman speaking into her wrist-watch wouldn't stand out _that _much. She positioned her lips close to the watch and cleared her throat.

"Andy? Can you hear me?"

At once, a nearby, towering business man craned his neck downward, watching her with a curious expression.

_Oh, hell. _

Well, that cleared things up; it looked as if the covert approach was only going to attract unwanted attention. Mildly panicked, she looked for a private corner to sidle into, but there were none; every bit of space in the train was taken up with grumpy passengers. Snape himself was crammed between two very young secretarial types, looking uncomfortable; "uncomfortable" was actually a good term for describing the way he'd looked all day, but since he'd been surprisingly cooperative--if a bit distant--Hermione hadn't let it needle her.

_And speaking of cooperative..._

"Snape," Hermione said, trying to politely squeeze nearer to him, which in turn pushed the secretaries further away from the train doors, earning her more than a few unpleasant grumbles.

Snape gave her that now-familiar, dull, inquiring stare. "What is it?"

Rising to her tiptoes, Hermione leaned in to whisper in his ear, ignoring the expression of alarm that broke out across his uneven features as she did so. "I need to take care of something," she said, choking down the urge to sneeze as his hair brushed past her nose and lips. "Just nod and pretend as if I'm explaining something terribly fascinating to you."

"Is this really necessary?" He asked, a hint of nervousness underlying his sour tone.

"Yes! Now, hold still...." She placed her hand on his shoulder and leaned in again, this time speaking more to her wrist than into his ear. "Andy?"

She read the watch-face intently, dimly aware that Snape had no choice but to look down at her, his warm, oddly-peppered breath heating her own cheeks and forehead. Part of her wanted to squirm at the thought of Snape breathing all over her, but there wasn't much she could do about it now--this had been her brilliant idea, after all.

_H e r m i o n e?_

"Andy, I need you to give Ron a message for me. Tell him that I'll be home soon, and that I will have...company with me. An...uh...old acquaintance. Tell him to be prepared, okay?"

_I  w i l l  t e l l  h i m . . ._

"Thank you. I have to go now. See you soon, Andy," she whispered, then finally pulled away from Snape, surprised to find that she was hot and perspiring. Whether it was from nerves or the stuffy train car, she wasn't sure.

"What was that?" Snape demanded, his voice loud and demanding enough to draw more than a few stares.

"Er...what was _what_?" Hermione asked, trying to sound bright and innocent. If Snape gave Andy away to a car full of Muggles, there would be fiery hell to pay. She swallowed a lump the size of a ping-pong ball and forced a smile.

"What was..." he trailed off, his eyes quickly flickering back and forth to account for the strangers that surrounded them. He pursed his lips shut and gave her a penetrating, thoroughly _exasperated_ stare. But just beneath that, she could see a very fine, almost child-like curiosity brewing; his lip twitched once, and he lowered his gaze down the length of her body, letting it come to rest on the right hand that she was tapping anxiously against her thigh. If he had been a normal man, she might have blushed at the hungry, lustful expression on his face, but since it was directed solely at the powerful, magical implement encircling her wrist, she could only fight to suppress a sudden case of silent laughter.

So this was what it took to draw Snape out of his spiritual coma, was it? For any other man it might have been the World Cup, or a shiny new broomstick, but for Snape it was magical gadgetry. It was no wonder, then, that as soon as they got off the train at their stop, Snape demanded to examine Andy at once.

"Let me see that," he said, lunging for her wrist as soon as they were in the relative safety of the half-deserted streets.

"Hands off!" Hermione just managed to dodge him, pulling the sleeve of her jacket over the watch in a protective gesture. "I'll have you know that is a one-of-a-kind item you are attempting to get your filthy mitts on. It's one of only two in existence."

"Yes, _clearly _it's one-of-a-kind. Otherwise I'd have absolutely no interest in it."

"Well, you'll just have to wait to see it. It's dark here, for one, and for two, anyone could happen by..." Hermione trailed off as she searched out the dark streets, realising that the sun had just gone down within the last hour. So... Malfoy's first daylight hours as an exiled wizard were over, and neither she nor Snape had any clue where he'd gotten off to. She vaguely wondered where he would sleep the night out, then decided that someone like Malfoy would either be dead by now, or tucked safely inside the home of some nice, rich Muggles that he'd managed to swindle with his aristocratic grin and halfway-acceptable vocabulary.

"Wait?" Snape protested, widening his stride so that Hermione had to skip-hop a few times to keep up with him. "Wait for what, exactly?" He then suddenly came to a dead stop and did a double-take, as if finally noticing where he was. "Where in blazes are we, anyway?"

"This is my neighbourhood," Hermione offered, waving her arm in the general direction of the run-down warehouses, empty shops, and crumbling sidewalks. She sucked in a deep breath of the autumn air, oddly enjoying, as always, the rotty-wood and coppery smells of her homely, forlorn street.

"You _live _here?" Snape asked, looking mildly appalled.

"Yes." Hermione wasn't particularly surprised that Snape disapproved; being a Slytherin and former Death Eater, he was most likely pureblood and had probably long enjoyed the finer things in life. Hogwarts Castle was hardly a hovel, after all, and his room at the Leaky Cauldron had been one of the finest that the establishment had to offer. _Looks like it's your turn to finally go slumming, Snape, _she thought, unable to stop from smiling.

When they finally arrived at Crookshanks'Snape's expression was best described as 'thoroughly underwhelmed'. He sniffed around the arid, dusty front room, picked up a year-old magazine with tented fingers and let it drop back on the desk with a dull slap, all the while looking around as if he'd just found himself locked inside a chimpanzee exhibit at the Zoo. Thinking fast, Hermione pointed him toward the stairs that led up to the flat; she didn't want him to move through the curtains and see the real nerve centre of _Crookshanks_ just yet. She might have invited him here, but that didn't mean she had to invite him into _everything_. Not right away, at least.

When Snape finally entered the flat--coming up at her heels quickly, as if to escape the office below--Hermione found herself suddenly buffeted by a wave of nostalgia so swift and potent that it nearly gave her a headache. She was struck with the image of herself entering Hogwarts Castle for the first time, only eleven years old, all bushy-hair and buck teeth, her eyes as wide as a House-Elf's as she took in the surroundings that she had already pored over in _Hogwarts, a History. _Everything had fascinated her--the enchanted ceilings, the walking suits of armour, the feast that appeared out of nowhere--but everything had also scared her a bit, too, though she fought hard to remain cool on the surface; these sort of wonders were old hat to the Wizarding-born students and she had wanted them to like her. Accept her.

She had never had an easy time fitting in at her school back home, where her bookishness was seen as aggravating, and her eagerness judged as arse-kissing. Once, when she was nine, she had been so lonely that she had taken to conversing with her stuffed animals; when her oldest teddy-bear, Ratchet, had animated to life and started talking back to her, she knew at once that what others said about her was true--she was indeed not at all normal. There had been other indicators as well; the fact that she could sometimes turn the pages of a book without touching them, or that during a test, the nub of her pencil would never seem to run dull.

Did Snape now feel as she did then? Like a stranger, an outcast, as he ascended into the Muggle world--a world he didn't even particularly want to become acquainted with? She and Ron used magic all the time, but their flat bore all the unsavoury and tell-tale characteristics of Muggle-living. There was a television and VCR resting on a rickety tea-table, dog-eared movie and sports magazines piled on random shelves, stacks of empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of the cigars that Ron had taken to smoking during Football matches.

Hoping to gauge Snape's response, Hermione quickly searched out his face; his mouth was grimly pursed, and he was looking disdainfully around the living room, his eyes finally coming to a rest on the blonde 'Rhoda Rhodes' wig that she had hooked over a pink desk-lamp. Hermione was in the habit of hanging her various wigs on different lamps around the flat--the shades were roughly head-sized, and hanging them up, as opposed to stuffing them in a bureau, kept the hair smooth and tangle-free. She wasn't sure she could explain this to Snape, however, without seeming like a bit of a nutter. He looked at the wig, then at Hermione, then back at the wig again, as if just now remembering that she had never been a natural red-head.

"What's that..." Snape began, nosing the air. "...smell?"

"Oh!" Hermione blanched; she could hear Ron banging around in the kitchen, and from the smell of it he was whipping up a pot of his famous corn chowder, heavy on the onions. Warning Snape to stay put, she collected herself and inched down the hallway, pausing in the doorway of the kitchen before fully entering. Ron was cooking all right, his face red and sweaty as he chopped away at a large onion bulb, humming along with Perry Como on the radio, while over at the stove his wand was poised mid-air, stirring a pot full of cream and broth. Instead of his usual jeans and jumper, he was dressed in trousers and a pinstriped shirt, a matching bow tie squeezing his broad neck, and his rusty hair was slicked back away from his face to reveal his funny, jug-handled ears. The kitchen and dining area had been thoroughly cleaned and spruced up, the table set and garnished with flowers.

_Perry Como? A bow tie? Flowers? Uhhh..._

Hermione was suddenly faced with the cold realisation that Ron must have horribly misunderstood Andy's message. He would never dress up for Snape. He would never _cook _for Snape. In such circumstances, Hermione predicted that slapping down a frozen dinner and pointing at the microwave would be as polite a gesture as she could expect. Not that she had planned to deck the halls for Snape, either; simple take-out would have done just fine. And she would have made him pay her back in Sickles, too.

"Ron?" Hermione slid into the kitchen, her hands twisting together nervously. "Erm, what are you doing?"

"Hi!" Ron swivelled around, grinning. "The chowder will be ready in twenty. Hope you're feeling peckish, seeing as I've made loads here."

"Okay. Thanks for cooking. You really didn't have to go to all this trouble."

"Not a problem," Ron said, dumping onions into the bubbling pot. "I just hope the chowder is okay....corn doesn't get lodged in dentures, does it?"

"Dentures?" Did Snape wear dentures? Hermione doubted it; dentures were usually made to look white and perfect, after all.

"Well, yes...last time she came to visit she had trouble with the roast beef, so I made soup this time. Minimal chewing and all."

"Soup!" Hermione rubbed her forehead wearily. "Ron...you think I've brought my grandmother over to dinner again? Is that why you're all dressed up and playing this...this silly coffin-dodger music?"

"Well of course!" Ron turned so fast that broth splashed from his spoon, dotting the clean expanse of his pressed shirt. "Andy said you were bringing someone _old_ over...who else could that be?"

"Old? I didn't say I was bringing an old _person_ over, Ron! I said I was bringing over an old _acquaintanc_e."

"Oh? Did you?" Ron laughed a little, then automatically reached up to tear free the bow tie. "I was mucking about with Fred and George when Andy gave me the message," he said, as if that explained everything. And it did, in a way. Fred and George had strange and mysterious powers of influence when it came to affecting Ron's daily beer-intake. "So who's the company then, if it's not your Gram?"

"An old acquaintance, remember?"

"Right. Is it Dumbledore, then? He's older than old."

Ron bent over to sample the soup as he spoke, and Hermione was inspired to lodge her foot up his arse as he did so. "Not _old _old, Ron," she said, not bothering to hide her exasperation. "Old as in _from the past_."

"Hey! Dumbledore's from the past," he protested, looking hurt. Hermione glared and said nothing, watching with grim satisfaction as his wounded expression was fast replaced by dull horror. "Oh Christ. It isn't Malfoy, is it? If you brought that nasty ferret back to our flat I'm going to fucking--"

"It's Snape."

Ron's mouth bounced shut; his face, which had previously been an angry, hot shade of vermilion, looked as if it had been swiftly doused with a pail of whitewash. Words seemed beyond him for a moment as he slowly lowered his spoon to the counter top and turned the fire down on the stove. "Professor Snape? You....you mean he's out in the living room. Right now?"

"Yes. Judging our décor with a critical eye, no doubt."

"But...Hermione, how could you? He's going to...."

"To what?" Hermione snapped, her patience thinning. Ron's inability to decipher Andy's warning had momentarily placed the position of power in her court, and she thought if she could just stay mad enough, it might prevent Ron from acting out in his usual, tempestuous way.

"....to be mean to us," Ron finished, his voice wilting a little.

"Oh, grow up, Ron! He's been at Fudge's beck and call for the last few months, and has hated every minute of it. He's completely alone and, quite frankly, seems more than a touch depressed. Would it kill us to let him in on a piece of the action?"

Ron blinked. "I can't believe I'm hearing this from you."

_Neither can I..._Hermione's mind reeled. "Look," she said, smoothly diverting her approach. "Ever since your Father's retirement and Percy's...silent treatment, Andy has been our only permanent link back to the Ministry. But with Snape involved, and Fudge using him as errand-boy, we're back in the game. It's only for a short while...I promise."

It could have been her imagination, but Hermione thought he brightened a tiny bit. "You mean we can..._use_ him?" He asked, sounding a bit more enthusiastic than she had anticipated. She had absolutely no idea if Snape would be of any use to them regarding the Ministry...but she supposed a little bend and stretch of the truth wouldn't hurt, just this once.

_Wise up, Granger. Your whole life is a pack of irreparably bent truths._

Dinner was predictably awkward. Ron was so overly hospitable that Snape, who had previously looked prepared to unleash the snark-within, was reduced to wavering confusion. He poked at his bowl of corn chowder suspiciously, as if certain that Ron had laced it with cyanide, but eagerly outstretched his glass when Hermione had the good sense to uncork a bottle of red wine.

"So, Professor Snape...I hear you've been working for the Minister of Magic," Ron said, too busy slugging down wine to notice Hermione's desperate shushing gestures.

Snape stared over the rim of his glass, sneering faintly. "It appears your attention span has improved since you were at school, Mister Weasley. If memory serves, _hearing _was never one of your strengths."

"Can I get either of you more wine? How about cognac? Or brandy?" Hermione twittered nervously, glancing at Ron's red, pinched expression; he was clearly making a valiant attempt to restrain himself. Snape, on the other hand, appeared to be relaxing a bit now that he'd finally gotten the upper hand in verbal sparring. He leaned back, posture still careful, and swished the wine around the bottom of his glass, swallowing deeply and blotting his lips neatly against the back of his wrist.

"And who do you work for, Mister Weasley? Are you an employee of Miss Granger's?" Here, he spooned up a bit of corn chowder and sniffed at it before drizzling it back into the bowl. "Her graceless cook, perhaps?"

Ron's chin trembled slightly from the force of his gritted teeth. He glanced once at Hermione--in quick apology, perhaps--before exploding. "OF ALL THE BLOODY FUCKING NERVE!" He slammed his fist down on the table, causing the silverware and china to tinkle musically.

"Ron, don't!" Hermione clutched at his arm before he could pound the table a second time. He pulled away, but the desperate look on her face must have been enough to cool his jets--for the time being, at least.

"I'll have you know I make a killer corn chowder," he said, glaring. "And Hermione _loves _it when I cook."

"Oh, honestly." Hermione covered her face with her hands. "Enough of the alpha male rubbish! We will now return to ordinary, civilised conversation. I insist."

"Very well." Snape pushed away from the table slightly, crossing his legs in a deliberately cool fashion. Hermione wrinkled her brow at this; Snape was back to old form, it seemed. Funnily enough, she was more relieved than annoyed. She would have been driven to something desperate if that detached, half-interested sarcasm had gone on much longer. "But Mister Weasley still hasn't answered my question," Snape continued, shrugging lightly.

Ron smirked. "We're in like shit, Snape. You think the Order had connections?  Well our operation has roots so deep not even your massive beak could sniff them out. We are the first line of intelligence when it comes to magical disturbance in the Muggle world, and we got our ears pressed into every fucking nook and cranny..."

Hermione sighed loudly, interrupting. "Hyperbole wine. Did I mistakenly serve the hyperbole wine? Cool it, Ron." Snape, to his credit, looked both annoyed and vaguely amused, softened, perhaps, by the many glasses of alcohol he had downed. "We don't know what it is we do, to be honest," Hermione explained. "We do investigate certain happenings from time to time--usually on Dumbledore's request--but mostly, we look for Harry."

"Potter?" Snape looked slightly uncomfortable. "In a city like this? Sounds a bit like searching for a knut in a pitch-black well. Why not wait for him to wander home on his own?"

"On his own?" Ron sputtered. "He needs our help, obviously.  If he _could_ come home on his own he certainly would have done so by now, you silly tit."

Hermione closed her eyes, trying to ignore their faint stinging. _I'm not so sure about that, Ron._ In a memory far away she could hear the swishing sound of her winter coat, its azure wool damp and smelly as she dragged it through the snow behind her, wandering through the courtyard of Hogwart's castle, half-asleep, half-dreaming. She rubbed her eyes once, then forced them open again.

Snape's expression, directed at Ron, was almost one of pity. "And what makes you think you could help him?"

Ron looked stricken, as if he hadn't fully expected this question. "Because...we have connections. We have Andy."

Snape bolted upright in his chair. "Andy!" He exclaimed, his face flushed by excitement rather than wine. "I heard you say that name before..." he pointed at Hermione. "...on the train, when you were fiddling with that watch."

Hermione's hand flew to her wrist, where she covered the watch protectively. "So what?"

"So...I want to know what that tricket is. You told me I could examine it, and I'd like to do so now, if you please." Snape's tone was stern, yet tentatively so. She wasn't his student anymore, after all."

"Ha! The watch is nothing," Ron scoffed. "Wait till you see the real thing..."

"Ron," Hermione groaned. So much for not letting Snape in on the full operation.

Five minutes later they were downstairs, Hermione lingering back as Ron presented Snape with the wonders of Andy, sounding quite like a salesman as he did so. "The twins and I designed the cauldron itself, and Hermione developed the spells that created Andy's consciousness. Now, notice how the shape of the cauldron resembles a--"

"Would it kill you to allow me some breathing room," Snape snarled. "I've been quite apt at using magical instruments since before you were born, you realise."

"Sure." Ron backed away, coming to a pause at Hermione's side. "Told you we were in like shit," he murmured softly, a triumphant little smile playing on his face. If Snape heard him, he gave no sign. He was too busy examining Andy, pressing his palms against the sides of the cauldron, dipping down to sniff its contents, and testing the liquid's texture and body between his fingertips. Hermione thought she heard him mutter "remarkable" at one point, though he _might_ have actually said "adorable". Or "dorkable". But was "dorkable" even a word?  It occurred to her that she might have had too much wine with dinner.

"I see your time with the Ministry was not wasted, Miss Granger," Snape finally announced, his features struggling with what looked like both admiration and profound disgust. "And just what other gadgets have you cooked up in this room?" He stepped away from Andy and clasped his hands behind his back, slowly walking the length of the area, stopping at one point to examine the maps and bulletin boards that had been tacked up to a rear wall.

"What are these?"

"Maps of London, mostly," Hermione said, moving closer. "Take a look."

Snape did so, leaning in close to one of the street maps, his eyes nearly squinted shut. "Your old classmate Longbottom appears to still be living with his Grandmother, if this map is to be believed."

"It's quite accurate," Hermione said, allowing a small note of pride to enter her voice. "The map identifies all witches and wizards by their respective wands, so unless a person leaves his or her wand behind--which is unlikely--the map is most exact."

"Ah, yes. Wand frequency. Used by Aurors for many years, I believe. Though how did you know to use it?"

Hermione shrugged. "It seemed the most obvious execution," she said vaguely. In truth, Sirius had given her the idea. During their Christmas stay at Grimmauld Place she asked him how he had happened to stay relatively sane despite nearly three years of hiding out; he had refused to divulge the details at first, clearly uncomfortable about explaining the survival techniques of an escaped convict . He had only offered her a single hint, asking her to consider how he had managed to evade the Ministry for so many years, despite their far-reaching armies of Aurors. The answer had come to her in the middle of the night, just before sleep: _Because they took his wand. They couldn't find him without his original wand._

"And look, here we are," Snape said, pointing. "Hermione, Ronald, and Severus." He smirked a little, apparently amused at the thought of them showing up together on a map.

"Actually, I brought you back here because of these, Snape." Hermione said. "We lost track of Malfoy today, but we can find him again using the maps."

"How's that? Malfoy has no wand. It's still back at Azkaban."

"True," Hermione said, smiling. "But he _does_ have magic on him--the implant charm that has sent him into exile. We know that charm, and with it we should be able to find him."

"It seems you have a semi-plausible plan, then." Snape regarded her with mild interest, his eyes lukewarm for once, rather than cold, and a faint thrill ran through her body; she felt as if she had finally answered a question correctly in Potions class, all these years after the fact. Better late than never.

Hermione let out a deep breath. "We might as well do the spell now," she said, pawing her wand out.

"Do we have to?" Ron groaned. "I really don't fancy the possibility of Malfoy on my wall, available for viewing all twenty-four hours of the day."

"It's not quite so perverted as _that_, Ron," Hermione deadpanned, and Snape let out a small noise, something that sounded dangerously close to a laugh. "Now quiet. I need to concentrate."

Both Ron and Snape backed up slightly, as if to give her breathing room, and she stepped closer to the map: Central London. Malfoy couldn't have gone any further than that. She outstretched her wand and began to murmur the incantation, the same one she had used on herself, very early that same morning.

"_Manifesto Extorris Draco...Manifesto Extorris Draco..._"

Her eyes scanned the map; there were hundreds of wizards and witches in Central London, all of them tiny dots, impossible to read on a map that covered this much territory. She would have to zoom in on Malfoy to pinpoint his exact location. "_Demonstrare_ _Draco Malfoy_" she muttered. When nothing happened, she frowned. The map should have changed perspective, focusing in on Malfoy only, but nothing had happened. "_Demonstrare Draco Malfoy_," she repeated, a little more forceful this time.

"He's not there?" Ron asked, sounding a touch relieved.

"But he must be," Hermione said, her frown deepening.

"Hmm. I thought something like this might happen." Snape approached the map again, his own wand now in hand.

"You thought _what_ would happen?"

"Well, it was a valiant attempt, Miss Granger....but you forgot one important thing." He reached out and tapped her wand with his own. "While it is possible to use your own wand frequency to seek out previously cast spells and charms, you are limited in that you can _only _track spells cast by this wand, in particular. Your wand did not implant the charm that now lives in Draco Malfoy's body. Therefore, your own wand cannot seek that charm out."

"What?" Hermione almost staggered backwards. "You mean it won't work?"

"Not with that wand."

Hermione stared at her wand, wrestling with the sudden urge to dash it to the floor and stomp it into a dozen or so pieces. How could she have been so dumb? Of course her wand would be useless in this situation. The only wand that _would _work was...Arlan Brewster's, most likely, as he was probably the Azkaban guard in charge of implanting such charms. The prospect of dressing up (_again_) in Hannah Abbot gear, all in order to sweet-talk Brewster's wand from his ready grip, was not at all appealing. Snape wasn't helping matters; he appeared to be gloating, and Hermione felt as if she'd just been given a failing grade--only this time she hadn't flunked a class, she had flunked her own life.

"Shit-shit-_shit_!" She wailed, on the verge of tearing up. "Now what do I do?"

"Time for plan B," Snape said, mimicking her words from earlier that morning. She scowled at him, but his face remained quite serious.

"Nah, what say we just forget him?" Ron offered.

"Because the Ministry _wants_ us to forget him, Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, her voice cracking. "They want Draco to disappear for a reason. Because he's important... _important_ somehow."

Ron shook his head once, very slightly, and Hermione could almost hear his thoughts in her head before he actually spoke them outloud. "He's not Harry, Hermione. He's not important like that."

"First Harry disappears. Now Draco. Who else has been forced out of one world and into another, Ron? Better yet, who's next?" Hermione felt her face sag, and was dimly conscious of the fact that hot tears were coursing down the planes of her face. She was too warm and her head itched terribly. She wanted to do nothing more than rip the stupid wig from her head and collapse onto her bed.

"Next?" Snape said, his voice low. Hoarse. "You think Harry's disappearance is connected to the Ministry? The same way you believe Draco's is?"

"Of course," Hermione sniffed, collecting herself. "They must have forced him into hiding, somehow. Or maybe he even asked that they help him hide out. I'm not sure of the details, not at all, but it seems the most likely scenario..." She trailed off, realising how ridiculously hopeful her words sounded. But she had to have hope, didn't she? It was the only thing she had left when it came to Harry.

"No," Snape said, drawing upright. "The Ministry has nothing at all to do with Potter's disappearance, Hermione. I can assure you of that."

"How do you know?" Hermione spat. "I saw the way Fudge treats you--he wouldn't tell you a thing, _Sevvy_."

"You've looked for Potter on your maps before, haven't you?" Snape's hand drifted toward her shoulder, and something like clumsy, unpracticed compassion was reflected in his eyes. She stiffened at once and his hand retreated, back into the folds of his robes--except they weren't robes anymore, and he had to stuff his hands into his pockets instead.

"Of course I have. Dozens of times."

"And he's not there?"

"No. His wand...he's either found a way to mask the frequency, or perhaps he has a new one. Perhaps he's found a way to manage without it."

"He has."

At once, it felt as if all the blood in Hermione's body had seeped down into her feet; her chest constricted painfully, so much so that she let out a stunted gasp. "How do you know?" she asked, instinctively moving closer.

Snape met her eyes. "Because I was there on the day that Potter sent his owl back to us. She was carrying quite a load, a Firebolt and spell books...and Potter's wand, clenched in her beak."

Hermione watched as Snape's face went wavy, as if she were viewing him from a fishbowl, and was dully aware of Ron coming up behind her, holding her steady. "That's a lie," she muttered. From the corner of her vision, she could see a framed photograph sitting on her desk, not far from Andy. It was a photograph of herself, Ron, and Harry--taken by Colin Creevey, of course--sometime around the beginning of their sixth year, all three of them tan and awkward, their faces darkened by the history that was rising up around them. The trouble with photographs was that they didn't usually talk back. Paintings of people who had never existed at all were free to chat from sun-up to sun-down, but photos of real people, dead or alive, never seemed to say a word. They simply smiled and waved, a teasing shadow from the past that echoed, echoed, echoed... Harry had known that best; she'd seen him pore over pictures of his parents on more than one occasion, tears glassing over his vision as he watched them share private smiles and hold hands, but never look on him with recognition reflected in their own eyes. For the past few years Hermione had pretended that the Harry in the picture was waving at _her_; that somehow, somewhere, he could see her looking after him. She had even talked to him now and then, foolishly hoping he might talk back.

But now she realised that, for the first time in this one-sided conversation, she had run out of things to say.

****************************************

**For reviewing, the award goes to:** Ashura-kitty, krisis, vainglory, Cerys Black, WvB, kimirasarille, aijouhermione, Talina Malfoy, Katarina Evanla, Angell, Anna-ColdCoffeeEyes25, Remus's Nymph, Malecrit, Avatar Firebreeze, JediGinny, Kokopoko, jacey, gally, Kneazle, Dahlia, anonymous ff.net person, didodikali, and all those who reviewed over on the WIKTT list. Your support means so much to me.

Hermione's "hyperbole wine" comment was inspired by David Cross' comedy rant about George Bush's addiction to "hyperbole pills". Good stuff.

Thanks to Susanna and Tien for their ever-helpful beta-comments. Also to Franzeska for helping me ponder titles....and extra EXTRA special hugs and kisses to Resmiranda for her lovely fanart.

To the Draco lovers: I promise he'll be back to making trouble in chapter 7.

For updates, cookies, and more, please refer to my livejournal. (www.livejournal.com/~fick_l_rene)


	8. Chapter Seven: Long Night of the Living ...

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter 7: Long Night of the Living Dead**

_"They only love you when you're seventeen, when you're twenty-one, you're no fun..."_

_Deejay's spinning Chicks On Speed. Outside it's cold, but inside it's boy-on-boy, girl-on-girl, and any other combination in the world, not to mention a lone American, dragged in by his __Chelsea__ girlfriend, who looks to be lost in the sea of smeared lipstick, of glitter and hot skin. Come morning, he'll have a dazzling hangover and will find that he finally has something to write home about; stories about more than just the changing of the guard and __Westminster__ Abbey. Chicks On Speed still spinning and you're right there with them, just a smidge of the go-go to keep you fuelled for the night. _

_What you remember most: your first taste of nightlife; not night_ _life like this, where money flows and drinks are served strong, but less public revelries that occurred on the fringes of the city, in abandoned warehouses, condemned fire-traps that could only be breached by steep scaffolding. You were always the first to climb, your grip light but strong, and the others never understood how you could look down from that height and not give in to vertigo, why the starry sky dipped and smeared for them but not for you. _

_Later, two pounds gets you dancing and all the watery beer you can swallow, but you were never the dancing sort, preferring to watch such spectacle from the sidelines. It felt good to be there; to stand still, for once, while everyone else orbited around you, their lithe, under-nourished arms raised in clumsy gyration. On occasion, a slim boy named Vincent would slip you a bottle of something called _easy lay_; not knowing better, you'd drink it down greedily. It simmered through your system like sun and magic, moved you in time with the music--for a while._

_Now you're back in the shadows, your face carefully shaded, a halo of smoke at your back. People know not who you are, but what: a man in charge. Now and then, one will approach you; you still have what everyone wants...a drug, a drink, a back-room tryst with an underage kid. DJ spins, and life is sort of like this now--an ongoing circle, a needle collecting dust in a well-worn groove. _

_It's nice; just manage to hold your ground and everything turns of its own accord. _

***

Harry sat at his desk with an unlit cigarette clamped between his teeth; he didn't care much for the taste of smoke (though the nicotine itself provided a pleasant rush, heady and mind-numbing), but found that keeping one in his mouth or fiddling one between his first and middle finger was a great aid in sorting out scattered thoughts. And at present, his thoughts were more than just scattered, they were downright paralysed.

When Harry had first seen Draco Malfoy standing out in the back alley with Varda, he'd scarcely recognized him; in fact, the only reason he hadn't had an outburst of sorts was due to his own uncertainty. It _looked _like Malfoy, sure enough--the starving in the streets of Calcutta version of Malfoy, anyway--but the demeanour was all wrong. This Malfoy was slouched and diminished, and, though taller than Harry himself, seemed far too small to match up with the image of that strutting bully that dominated Harry's own Swiss-cheese memory. When he'd spoken out loud, asked to use the phone, his voice had none of that low, snarling quality that Harry recalled, sounding instead like the high-strung tremolo of a Vienna choir boy; at both the sound and sight of him, Harry was struck with the image of a forlorn Dickens orphan, toddling forth with his empty soup bowl outstretched and squeaking, "please sir, may I have some more?"

It was deeply annoying, to be greeted with a sight that inspired so many wayward reactions, and even more so to find himself uncertain as to whether or not this person was in fact Malfoy at all. He'd only finally verified it when Malfoy, at mention of the word "father", had turned an odd shade of mauve, as if both experiencing the pale of fear and flush of anger at once. In that moment, the Draco Malfoy that Harry remembered finally emerged in a mosaic of tiny, idiosyncratic details: the nearly-perpetual sneer, the arrogant manner in which he brushed his unclean hair from his forehead as if half-bored by all the goings-on around him, self-important as a bloody-fucking-Windsor even while dressed in tattered grey garb. Harry dimly recalled seeing all these gestures every day when he was back at Hogwarts, and now, three years later, they were completely unsurprising; more irritating than before, even, because this time they stood as reminders of everything Harry thought he had forgotten.

Funnily enough, Harry could remember his Dursley years with perfect clarity, albeit with a curious sense of detachment, as if looking at a picture album rather than his actual life. Aunt Petunia had always loved old records, those by the sort of tired songstresses who did long stints in Vegas for the majority of their careers, and had played Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" over and over again while cleaning house (which usually meant standing watch while Harry did most of the actual cleaning), often moving aside to watch in silence when Aunt Petunia forgot he was there and began to sing along into the fluffy end of a feather duster, floating dreamily around the front parlour.

_Memmmories...light the corners of my mind. Misty, water-coloured memmmmories...of the way we were._

Barbra and Petunia had it all wrong. Memories weren't misty and water-coloured; they were hard and blinding, more like permanent graffiti, and to look at one was to be momentarily silenced, struck dumb. The only thing to do was to squint at it bit by bit, one pixel of detail at a time.

Which was why Harry could focus only one nagging thing: _why _was Malfoy dressed in prison wear? Harry dismissed the urge to ask him how a dilettante Death Eater had managed to be incarcerated at the tender age of twenty-one; the fewer questions he asked, the fewer he was likely to receive in return, he reasoned. But about that he was wrong.

"What do you mean, 'I'm not a wizard anymore'?" Malfoy asked, his eyes at once going from narrowed suspicion to wide-open disbelief.

Harry paused, slowly rolling the cigarette between his callused fingers--calluses that had been raised by years of quill-scribbling and wand-waving, once upon a time. From Malfoy he had expected scoffing, a stinging dig along the lines of _That's right, Potter. Always knew you weren't up to snuff as a wizard...so tell me something I don't know. _Instead, he appeared vaguely panicked, his hands outstretched and clutching for some sort of purchase along the slick edge of the metal desk.

"How can perfect Potter not be a wizard?" Malfoy's voice shot higher as he spoke, seeming to tremble on the edge of dementia. "He's the wizard's wizard...." he began to laugh in forceful, wheezing fits, though it seemed he was attempting to cover a staggered bout of choking.

"Collect yourself, Malfoy," Harry said. He brought the cigarette to his mouth and snapped open his zippo. After lighting it and taking a single, leisurely drag, he passed it over to Malfoy, who stared at its burning tip and seemed to sober slightly, finally bringing it to his lips and pulling in a lungful of smoke. He exhaled a blue cloud and coughed twice, flatly, then lowered himself into a chair, his shoulders slumping. Harry warned himself not to be touched by Malfoy's concern...it had nothing to do with him, and instead had to do with the fact that Malfoy was entirely alone, apparently in desperate need of a shower and a phone call to Mumsy.

"I suppose you want to know how this happened," Malfoy said, outstretching his arms and staring at the dingy cuffs of his prison-issue shirt.

"Not really." Harry tipped the cowboy hat he was wearing until it cut the sight of Malfoy's face off at the eyes. Seeing a sad, woebegone Malfoy did little to garner his sympathy. So Malfoy seemed to have a huge, possibly-unsolvable problem...so what? Harry knew full well that it was _killing _Malfoy to be vulnerable and needy in front him, but he also had a hunch that Malfoy would play the heartstrings card if it meant that he could gain favour by acting out a three-tissue tearjerker. The memory of Malfoy walking around for months with a bandaged arm had suddenly popped into Harry's memory full blown; Malfoy had been a fine actor when the occasion had called for it.

And Harry might have cared--he really might have--if it had been anyone else. And if he hadn't so strongly sensed that Malfoy's problems were caused by his own actions alone. Harry doubted Malfoy was wearing Azkaban clothing to make a fashion statement, after all, so was left to assume that whatever he'd done, Malfoy was a guilty man. Azkaban was no place for innocents.

_But there was Hagrid...and Sirius..._

"Did you do it?" Harry asked it without planning to. Then he frowned and lit a cigarette for himself, willing to bite back the bitter taste for once.

"No." Malfoy shook his head dimly, flicking ash to the floor and brushing it aside with his shoe. "I didn't do it like they said I did, anyway."

Harry didn't bother to ask what "it" was. He only leaned back and exhaled in the direction of the ceiling. "How'd you get out?" With this question he almost let out a laugh. The conversation was starting to resemble an interrogation scene from a low-budget crime drama, when both cop and suspect sit in an uncomfortably bare room and go through the motions of discussing something that matters, but in the end say nothing because neither trust one another enough to disclose the truth. But he doubted Malfoy would appreciate the irony in such a comparison; as far as he knew, Malfoy had never even seen a crime drama.

"They let me out."

Harry pushed up his hat so Malfoy could see the doubt in his eyes. "Really now?"

"They took my wand and implanted a charm...something to keep me away from the real world. They told me I could come back in seven years, when my sentence was up." Malfoy shrugged in mild defeat, and Harry was briefly confused by his use of the phrase _the real world._ Then he realized that, for Malfoy, there was no distinction between the wizarding world and the Muggle world...there was only the real world--his world. Anything outside that world was trivial and not worth much thought.

"That's pretty clever," Harry said.

Malfoy's gaze narrowed, just slightly. "How so?"

"Well, you're a pure-blooded wizard, Malfoy, and an heir to a great fortune, at that. A value to society, in other words. If they keep you in Azkaban around the Dementors for seven years, you'll likely end up a gurgling numbskull, at worst, or wind up with weakened magical power, at best. Even while exiled from the so-called _real_ world, you can at least be assured that your magic is nicely hibernated and waiting for you when you re-enter in seven years time. But by booting you out to the Muggles, you experience punishment of a different sort...the punishment of alienation." As he spoke, Harry noticed how he tripped over the words, how thick-tongued they felt in his mouth; clearly, he'd been reserved as of late, keeping to himself rather than conversing with others.

_Almost as if I've been quietly subtracting myself from my life here in the past weeks, as if a part of me knew this was coming...knew that my past was just outside waiting, out back in an empty alley._

A mixture of emotions passed over Malfoy's features, obscured by the plume of smoke that spiralled from the tip of his cigarette. "Alienation?" he asked, his tone stony, reminiscent of the haughtiness he had always reserved for his particular form of barbs and aggravation. "Sounds like you know something of that, Potter."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe, but I'm not the one desperate for a cleansing spell, am I?"

"Meaning what?" Malfoy bolted forward, grinding his cigarette out on the tiled floor.

"Meaning I've learned to cope with alienation."

"Naturally you can cope," Malfoy snarled. "Muggles are built to be dull and hardy and adaptable--and the bloody Muggle world practically spawned you, remember? You'd never even heard of magic or wizards until you set foot into Diagon Alley with that lumbering troll, Hagrid."

"Of course I'd heard of magic and wizards. I did read books as a child, you realise." Even as he spoke, his tone ever-so-cool, Harry felt a long-forgotten rage surfacing from...somewhere. Part of him felt compelled to rush to the defence of his friends against Malfoy's cruel tongue; though another, more rational part of him was stunned to realise that he could scarcely conjure up their faces in his memory, their silhouettes blurry as if encased in water, wavering behind a train window as they sped away, leaving him on the platform. What good did it do to feel rage now, when he'd gone years without even thinking of Hagrid or anyone else? It was too late to care now, and any regret for the last three years would be an empty, useless offer.

"Who cares about books?" Malfoy said, sounding disgusted. "And do you realise that talking to you is hopeless? When exactly did you get this way, Potter?"

"When exactly did you start expecting hope from the likes of me?" Harry shot back, confounded by the extent of Malfoy's nerve.

"For fuck's sake, quit answering all my questions with questions!" Malfoy fisted his hands, his impassive features twisting in frustration. "Why can't you just..." he trailed off, the angry colour of his face evening out, his mouth pinched in uneasy resentment.

Harry stared. Malfoy's eyes were wildly searching out Harry's own, and Harry could see in them that Malfoy was horrified at having to resort to this...at having to actually humble himself before the one person he had always hated. And oddly, this was the one thing that Harry could sympathise with. Just as Harry would have found himself appalled and degraded at having to beg for Malfoy's help, so Malfoy must have felt. "I'm sorry," Harry offered, sincere this time. "But for years you resented me for who I was. And now you come to me for help precisely because of _what_ I was...pardon me if I'm not jumping at the chance to carry out any dramatic heroics again."

"But..." Malfoy halted.

"But that's not me anymore, anyway. I don't have that saving-people…thing. All I can do is offer you the same things I offered you when you first showed up: a cot to sleep on, a shower to clean yourself up in, and free drinks, if you want. I'd offer these basic comforts to any stranger on the street, so I should just as well offer them to you."

"Such generosity." Malfoy managed a glare while at the same time rolling his eyes, and Harry was faintly amused to hear any statement on generosity leave the lips of one who had been--and still was, he suspected--so legendary for his distinct _lack _of any such virtue.

"The dressing room is just outside my office--first door to your left, the one with a purple star on it. You can use the shower at the rear of the dressing room, and there're towels in an adjacent cupboard."

Malfoy half-rose, then wavered. "What do I do when I'm finished?"

"Make yourself comfortable, if you want. I'll come around in twenty minutes or so."

"Then what?"

"Then..." Harry sighed, knuckling at his smoke-stung eyes. "...then we'll have to see what we see, I guess."

"Right then," Malfoy said, doubt tingeing his voice.

"Go on."

"I am." And he did, striding purposefully to the office door, his shoulders squared off in defiance until the door itself angled open and allowed an unwelcome, bass-heavy riff of club music to blast inward, causing Malfoy to visably jolt, his fingers plucking loose from the doorknob so that the door itself slammed shut with a metallic clang.

"Christ," Malfoy swore, brushing his hair back in a single, furious movement before yanking the door open and finally exiting.

Watching him go, Harry was left feeling vaguely unhappy. When he had first realised that Malfoy was in fact Malfoy, he had at once resented his presence for what it carried: distinct proof of his own past, and a testament that his shredded memory was in fact truth...which meant he could no longer go on ignoring either. Now, though, Harry found himself resenting Malfoy for a very different reason: for providing insight into what was undeniable, that Harry didn't much care for the person he himself had evolved into these past three years. He hadn't given it much thought before, perhaps, but now he was vaguely uneasy. A dull nausea had taken hold in his gut, and he swept his cowboy hat back in order to run his fingers over the scar on his forehead. The familiarity of the gesture was painful despite the fact that he hadn't purposefully touched himself on this spot in a very long time, as if the nerve-endings were being groggily roused from an extended slumber.

"Easy to leave a part of ourselves behind..." he muttered. Where had he heard that? It had been a sort of warning, hadn't it? Yes. He straightened up in his chair, continuing to rub his forehead as his thoughts took on a clearer shape.

He remembered speaking with Nearly Headless Nick--not a hallucination, not a dream, but the real thing. What had Sir Nicholas warned him of? It had seemed so imprecise at the time, mostly because it seemed that Sir Nick was not able or not permitted to clarify his warning in full. But to meet Sir Nick at the beginning of the month, and Draco Malfoy at the end...well, in tandem, the two events seemed too strange to be coincidence. Had Nick been warning Harry about Malfoy? _Was_ Malfoy a danger? Harry had certainly thought so at age twelve, when he and Ron had been convinced that Malfoy was the Heir of Slytherin. 

_Funny how we always saw Malfoy as the bogeyman laying in wait... despite the fact that he couldn't be arsed to pull off a truly evil stunt without flubbing it up somehow. _

There had been that unsuccessful attempt to present himself as a Dementor, for example. And the month-after-month charade of wearing bandages around his arm to convince the school that he'd been maimed for life by a rampaging Hippogriff. Not to mention that Harry could very dimly remember Malfoy having cheerfully aided a particularly gruesome Professor.

_Snape, maybe?  No, Snape never wore fluffy pink cardigans._

Despite the lack of clear details, Harry knew that Malfoy certainly had a flair for causing trouble...and for flaying egos, nasty little bigot that he was. So when pressed on the question of danger, Harry wasn't sure what to think. His impression of villains had changed long ago; he'd been so wrong about them in the past, after all. The dreaded Sirius Black had turned out to be his Godfather, an innocuous fat rat had turned up as the real culprit, and, in fourth year, Harry's favourite new Professor was revealed as the nutter who'd been trying to do him in from the outset. Indeed, much of Harry's formative years had been defined against whichever villain he'd been fighting, and in those first few years he'd never doubted himself, had never doubted the necessity of the battle. That doubt had come later.

Still turning questions over in his mind, Harry left his office and made for the dressing room. He opened the door and shouted "Malfoy!" at the same time, expecting that he would have to raise his voice over the sound of running water. Instead, he was greeted with nothing more than his own echo. The dressing room was silent and dark, with no sign that Malfoy had been there at all.

_Maybe he went back to the streets_.

Harry dismissed the possibility at once; Malfoy hadn't even had a jacket on him, and the evening had brought in a cold front. He wasn't quite the hardy, out-of-doors type, after all.

Prowling back through the neon glow of the club, Harry spotted him at once, his physical presence unmistakable in its striking combination of utter filthiness and innate arrogance, but strangely radiant in the dim light because he was so pale. Though it wasn't yet seven o'clock quite a few patrons were already drinking at the bar, and Malfoy sat amongst them, dipping his hand into the bartender's garnish caddy as if in line at an all-you-can-eat buffet. A detritus of curled orange rind was littered across the counter before him, and he was raising a pawful of maraschino cherries to his mouth. Between bites, he managed to converse with the man who sat next to him--an older regular who was wearing a sporty Versace pullover and large, tinted sunglasses.

"These are quite funny things, aren't they?" Malfoy said, pulling a cherry stem from his teeth. "Taste a bit like Fizzing Whizbees, but without the fizzing part."

"Hullo Lars," Harry said, approaching the man in Versace, while at the same time shooting Malfoy a warning glace.

"Wherever did you find this one, H.?" Lars asked, looking at Malfoy over the top of his sunglasses. "_Very _grungy, but in an ironic, subversive sort of way. I like him."

"Hey, thanks," Malfoy said, his teeth a watery pink when he grinned.

"Come with me," Harry said to Malfoy, his tone no-nonsense. "Sorry," he offered to Lars, who was gazing appreciatively at Malfoy's backside as he rose from the barstool. "New hire...we're just training him."

Lars nodded. "I recommend a firm hand for that one. _Two_ firm hands, if you can spare them."

"Will do," Harry answered absently.

He eventually managed to pull Malfoy out of the club's respective earshot, though that wasn't hard to do, given the volume of the music. "What are you doing?" he demanded. "You can't talk about Fizzing Whizbees in front of the clientele--or in front of anyone, for that matter. And you can't help yourself to whatever you like, either," he added, pointing at the last few remaining cherries in Malfoy's hand.

"You sound like my grumpy old Nanny," Malfoy complained, still chewing. "Who cares what I talk about in front of some old Muggle anyway? He's the ignorant one, not me."

"Yeah, so says the bloke who it seems couldn't find his way to a pay phone today."

Malfoy shrugged and muttered something that sounded like "_stupid talk-box"_.

"Why didn't you have your shower?" Harry looked Malfoy over; to think that any creature would stand to stay so repulsive for a minute longer was hard to comprehend. Beneath the grime, grease, and scrubby facial hair, Harry suspected that Malfoy still possessed those same pointed features that were so suited to pouting, snarling, and smirking. "Ferret-face", they'd dubbed him--though admittedly only after he'd started calling Hermione 'the buck-toothed beaver', Ron "the Weasel", and Harry "scar head". Harry took his eyes from Malfoy's face, a bit sorry to actually remember such an uninspiring exchange of wishy-washy insults.

Malfoy shifted around before speaking, as if sensing a reprimand. "Couldn't figure it out. Turned the tap and only cold water came out."

"You don't know how to use a shower," Harry stated, closing his eyes in exasperation.

"Not that kind--I mean, look...at home there were always house-elves to draw our baths, and back at school all you had to do to get hot water was tap the piggy snout of the fat gargoyle that perched at the edge of the tub."

Harry braced himself against the edge of the bar, trying to quell his mounting irritation. He had always suspected Malfoy was spoiled, but he didn't know it went to such an extent; nevertheless, he suddenly felt quite as if he were the owner of a very young, ill-behaved, un-housebroken pet. It wasn't a very humane thought, and it came un-invited, but once there the comparison stayed, sending panic straight to his throat, seizing all words. How could he have thought that Malfoy would be content to camp out in the dressing room, quiet as an innocuous, blond dish-rag? It was much more his style to tear about and piss on the furniture. And that was just it: Harry couldn't allow Malfoy to run loose, not when his very presence guaranteed any number of disruptions.

"There's no way this will work," he said flatly. The panic had loosened its hold enough to let him finally speak, but it still remained, like a dizzy spot in his mind that agitated his thoughts as soon as they began to form. The result was something like an electrical short: _Is this the past? Do I want the past back?_

"What? No! I mean..." Malfoy clutched at his own sleeves, twisting them. "Don't make me leave...I can figure the shower out. I just didn't try very hard. Just...for fuck's sake, Potter, let me give it another go."

"It's not just the shower," Harry said, shaking his head. "You're completely unfit for this place."

"Don't you think I know that? Of course I'm not fit for this place...have you _looked at this place?" Malfoy seethed, his voice threatening to rise above the sound system._

"We're off," Harry said, prodding Malfoy back towards his office. Once there, he threw open a cupboard and tossed a second-hand wool jacket at him, then removed his own leather coat and heaved it over his shoulders, noticing for the first time that he was very cold. Gooseflesh had risen on his forearms in huge, rash-like clusters and he clumsily attempted to smooth them away with the flats of both palms. "I can't have you staying here, mucking up the works," he said slowly, now crossing his arms together in a firm X across his chest, trying to will himself steady.

"Where are we going, then?" Malfoy asked, buttoning up, oblivious to the struggle that was taking place in Harry's thoughts, to the new and fresh ache he'd brought with him.

"My place."

***

_Draco Malfoy, Sailor of the World. No, Draco Malfoy, Captain of Good Fortune. Better still, Draco Malfoy, Terror of the Seven Seas. _

_So he is: Draco Malfoy, Terror of the Seven Seas, heading windward in the family yacht, the _Atropos, _his father at his side because he is still only nine, and doesn't have the strength nor the dexterity to adjust the rigging on his own. The Malfoys have more than enough galleons to purchase an entire armada of magically-powered sailboats that would allow them plenty of time to leisure about the sunny, polished deck, but also possess enough pride to insist on doing certain things the hard way. Sailing, a long-treasured Malfoy tradition, is one of these things._

_Draco loves sailing; it's one of the few occasions on which he has his very busy father all to himself, as his mother Narcissa lacks what his father calls _sea legs_. He listens closely to his father's instructions, delivered in a clear, no-nonsense manner; _here's how to straighten the mainsheet. This is how you tie off the bowline._ Lucius expects Draco to pay attention, to get things right the first time, not because he doesn't believe in practice making perfect, but because he knows the same thing Draco knows: that there is sailing in their blood. It's a trait as clear and distinct as the white-blond hair that they share. To sail is to take control of a hulking creature, to dictate the wind and chart your own course. To be master of your own destiny. Such is the Malfoy way. _

_Draco learns to knot the bowline in a single day's time, his fingers bloodied and raw by the time the sun sets. He stands nearby as his father steers, a ready acolyte, but wonders why his father never tires of gripping the wheel, of counting off nautical distances in his head, or why, for that matter, he never offers to let Draco hold the wheel--not even to place Draco's hands on it while overlapping them with his own, an assured example of how the wheel is mastered._

_Standing at the bow, alone, Draco wishes his father would let go... just this once. He wants to know what it's like to drift...to just let the wind sweep through and make lungs of the sails, the breath of uncertainty carving a path before them. _

_Then the sun sets, turning the water into the bottom of a dark bowl; no stars swim within it tonight. Draco curls his hands at his side and leans forward, his toes gripping the edge of the bow's lifeline, his body lightly supported by the criss-cross cables. He imagines himself as a figurehead on the prow--not in the shape of a small nine year old boy, but as a silver dragon, maybe, something grand and mythic, with razored claws and whisper-thin wings. He bares his teeth, eyes narrowed, and pushes forth, determined to plunder the inky black._

  
***

It was sort of fun, making Potter's life miserable. Or it would have been, if Draco's survival weren't more or less riding on Potter's patience with him. Potter was dead silent during the walk to his flat, apparently engaged in a mental argument with himself. Wisely, Draco had so far said nothing. If the situation was reversed and Potter had come to _him_ for help, he knew exactly what he would have done...he would have sent him packing, post haste. Might have even set the hounds loose on him, just for good measure. The fact that Potter was buggering up his own busy schedule to help out an old enemy said plenty about his ever-laughable sense of morals and chivalry. On the other hand, this was clearly not the Potter that Draco had known at school; his sense of duty seemed far less defined, and his eagerness to do "good" was practically undetectable. His eyes shifted moodily when he spoke, but were otherwise unreadable. Draco had no idea where he stood with Potter, and for that reason alone he knew he had better play it safe. Relying on Potter's good-will...god, it was awful.

His resentment escalated as he struggled to keep up with Potter, who was walking briskly despite Draco's own obvious fatigue. The scent of warm, satisfying meals wafted out from each café that they passed, and was distracting enough to slow him down even further.

"Ease up there, Potter. I've been on my feet all day," he panted, trying to tug Potter's sleeve but just missing. Potter did slow a bit, but said nothing, his features well-concealed beneath the brim of the cowboy hat. Draco wondered how he managed to see at all, considering that he wasn't wearing his legendary owlish spectacles.

"Smell that? Greek food--grape leaves and kassari," Draco said. Potter gave him a strange look. "I've sailed around most of the islands, you know...Skiathos had a number of amazing, high-quality wizarding resorts. Pity it's been over-run with Muggle tourism. Nothing beats the Riviera for a long holiday though...beautiful water, brilliant nightlife." Draco had no idea what he was doing, talking such ridiculousness, but it seemed the only way to keep himself from asking Potter a million questions at once, or, worse yet, from falling to his knees and begging Potter for help in finding his mother, or his possibly- traitorous fiancée, or anyone who could get him back to his home, his money, his life.

"I'm not buying you any Greek food, if that's what you're asking," Potter said, stuffing his hands deep into his pockets.

"It's not," Draco mumbled, thoughis stomach gurgled audibly.

"This is where I live," Potter said, slowing down. They'd stopped in front of an old, brick-front building that had a falafel take-out and wine shop on the ground floor. Draco shifted slightly as he looked the place over; he'd never known anyone who lived above a shop before--well, aside from the shop proprietors in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, who typically lived in roomy flats just above. As it turned out, Potter's flat was on the third storey and could only be reached by a cramped, winding flight of stairs. Rather than taking up the entire floor, the flat appeared to be lodged into the back fourth of it, and the inside, while clean and tidy, was so sparse and small that it at first reminded Draco of the prison cell he'd left just that morning.

"Um...quite nice," Draco said, lingering by the door as Potter wandered around, snapping on lamps. The front room appeared to be a kitchen, dining room, and parlour all in one, and if it seemed small now, Draco could only imagine that with real furniture the space would disappear entirely. Potter seemed to possess not much more than a very small sofa, a tea table, and a mismatched pair of chairs. There were several crates of paperback books lined up along one wall, and a television abandoned to a rear corner. That was it.

"I can't stay, but I'll at least show you to the shower," Potter said, indicating that Draco should follow him down a short hallway and into the bathroom--which ended up being roughly half the size of a Malfoy Manor linen cupboard. Potter demonstrated how to adjust both faucets until the water reached proper temperature, then pointed out various plastic bottles along the shelf. "Shampoo, conditioner, shower gel--best used in that order, in case you're not familiar. Razors and foam are in the medicine chest above the sink," he said, pointing. "I'll put a change of clothes outside the bathroom door, but then I have to leave." Potter removed his hat and scrubbed at his wayward hair, his expression distracted.

"Is there anything of yours I shouldn't touch?" Draco asked, sitting on the toilet so that he could untie his shoes. Potter looked a bit surprised that he had the manners to ask such a thing, but Draco supposed he had that coming, given his own long track-record of acting first and asking later.

"No, make yourself at home." Potter shrugged, then added, as an afterthought, "there's plenty of food, if you want." He left with only a warning not to answer the door or telephone, and said he expected to be back at around four in the morning. Once outfitting Draco with plenty of fresh towels, he shut the bathroom door and left him alone to get clean.

The shower was cramped, but the water hot and plentiful; Draco spent over half an hour shampooing and scrubbing, then, once reasonably towelled dry, stooped in front of the crooked mirror to shave. He was lucky, he supposed, that his father had always preferred straight-razor shaving to shaving spells; the funny plastic-like razor he found in the medicine chest wasn't as sharp as he would have liked, but it got the job done.

After examining the contents of Potter's medicine cabinet (nothing much of interest there: something foul-tasting called Listerine, tooth-flossing strings, spray-can deodorant, some odd tubes of ointment) Draco swathed a towel about his waist and exited the bathroom. Potter had left clothing folded on a chair out in the hallway, just as he said he would, and Draco scooped it up before entering the bedroom, where he searched along the wall for several minutes before finding a switch that turned on the overhead lights.

For the second time that evening Draco was stricken by the mystery of how someone with enough money for enviable shoes and a handsome leather coat could have so little else in the way of belongings. The bedroom housed no more than a medium-sized bed and a scratched-up bureau. The walls were bare but for a full length mirror. Draco paused before it for a moment, his breath shallow, then finally dropped his towel and pulled himself upright.

It was a few minutes before he had the courage to fully focus his eyes, and when he finally did wasn't altogether surprised to see that the naked body in the mirror looked not much like the one he remembered. He had never possessed a bulky physique like Goyle or Crabbe or Flint, but the figure in the mirror was almost rail thin; the groves between each of his ribs were cast in shadow and his limbs seemed to be drawn in angles, all of his former lean musculature wilted away in what amounted to a fairly brief period of time. Draco absently wondered what he would have looked like after seven years of imprisonment.

_Old. I would have been an old man. Ancient before my time._

Much as he didn't like what he saw now, it was nothing that a few good meals, some exercise and fresh air wouldn't cure. He felt oddly soothed by that thought, but found that he couldn't look in the mirror any longer. He had once loved mirrors quite a lot...mirrors had loved _him_, too, often cooing and brightening up at his approach, the glass tinged with a scarlet hint of blush; but he now found he couldn't look into one without glimpsing his father over his shoulder, his mouth slung open in anger and dismay, pulling in that final, astonished breath. Quite a downer, it was.

Draco sighed as he turned away from the mirror. He was in need of a distraction from all these...thoughts. Unfortunately, Potter's flat didn't have much in the way of distractions. After pulling on the long-sleeved tee-shirt and loose trousers that had been left out for him (a bit too short at the wrists and ankles, but otherwise warm and clean), he busied about looking for something to do, but found nothing. The telly didn't pick up any programmes, and all of Potter's books were dark mysteries about Muggles with guns, which might have been interesting if he'd been in the mood for a good read, but he wasn't. He decided to eat instead, helping himself to bread and cheese, plus a half-eaten tin of beans that he found shoved in the far corner of an enormous white box that chugged out cold air. _A fridgamator_, he thought triumphantly. He was careful to choose food that didn't require cooking, as he was fairly certain that the Muggle stoves would be just as difficult to operate as telephones. Once fed, he discovered he was no longer bored but simply exhausted...which left him with another dilemma: where was he to sleep?

Potter's bed was big enough for two people--two people who were comfortably spooning back to front. Draco doubted there was a bed in the world roomy enough to provide a satisfactory distance between two people who loathed one another. Since it was Potter's place, and since the bed hadn't been offered, Draco reluctantly settled with a blanket and the floor. He arranged the sofa cushions into a makeshift bed and found that, in all, it was actually just a bit more comfy than the itchy cot he'd been given in Azkaban. But only just.

Draco stared at the ceiling far above his head and wondered, just before drifting off, how exactly Potter had ended up in a place like this. Maybe it was easy for him to live with this sort of thing, having grown up with Muggles and all, but Draco didn't understand why someone would turn down magic in favour of a two room flat and runny tinned beans that left a foul taste in one's mouth. It was almost offensive. Especially considering that Potter had been the spoilt darling of the Wizarding world for years and years--up until Voldemort's resurrection, anyway. After that, people were mostly too frenzied to think about Harry Potter; Voldemort's being back seemed to cancel out both the glory and the gossip associated with The Boy Who Lived, and the public had been more concerned about what troubles the new war would bring.  And despite having eventually admitted to Voldemort's return, the Ministry had gone on waffling on the facts.  _Those reports are unconfirmed_ became Fudge's most popular turn of phrase post-1996.

_Unconfirmed my tight arse. _

Draco, being the privileged son of Lucius Malfoy, had known the truth: the Dark Lord was back in full, plotting away at some undisclosed location. Undisclosed even to the Death Eaters, as Voldemort had risen with some serious doubts about his legion of loyal followers; there was even word that those who had escaped Azkaban for him had ended up failing him somehow.  Having not been privy to _those _sordid details, Draco could only guess that Voldemort had left the Death Eaters on call while heading off to search for more trustworthy minions.

_Would Voldemort put up with tinned beans? Or would he crush the filthy tin and demand to be fed plump grapes by the delicate hand of a Harem girl? Latter, I think. And once fat on grapes, he'd most likely crush the Harem girl's hand. Poor doomed wench._

And with that half-formed thought, Draco yawned and rolled over, then closed his eyes and slept.

Several hours later, in the midst of a thick, hallucinatory dream involving barrel-racing Dementors on horseback, Draco was rudely awoken by a hoof in the eye--or so he blearily thought at first.

"Owwww....what th' fuck?" he mumbled, throwing up his arm to blot out the lamplight that suddenly flooded the room.

"Jesus Christ, Malfoy. Why are you laying right in front of the door?" came Potter's voice. Squinting, Draco saw Potter leaning against the sofa, pulling his shoes off; his hat was upside down on the floor, looking slightly squashed.

"Didn't much matter where I kipped for the night--the whole bloody flat is right in front of that door," Draco said, massaging his aching eye.

"You could have used the bed."

"It's yours."

"Yeah, but I don't usually go to sleep until seven or eight. I don't sleep much, actually."

Draco sat halfway up and watched as Potter plodded barefoot to the kitchen area and put the kettle on. He seemed quite energized as he swept Draco's bread crumbs into a dustbin and set about cracking eggs into a frying pan. Stranger yet, he was bobbing slightly as he cooked, concentrating on the turn of his spatula as he hummed an off-key tune under his breath.

"Uh, Potter?" Draco ventured, cocking his head to one side. Potter's head bucked up in surprise, as if he'd forgotten his presence entirely, then his face broke out into an easy grin--so far it was the first natural, un-constipated expression that Malfoy had seen from him.

"Eggy-weggy-faggy for you, Malfoy? Got nearly a dozen here."

"Potter..." Draco began, rising to his feet and nearly swept over at once with light-headedness. "Have you been at the bottle or something?"

"Not a bit....Not a drinking man." Potter made a showy to-do about flipping his egg over in mid-air. "Just a little Ma Huang now and then...for an all-natural lift."

"You say 'all-natural' like it's a good thing," Draco said, frowning. After six years of potions with Snape, Potter ought to have remembered that plenty of all-natural things could kill you dead in a span of six seconds or less. "And if it lifts you this much, it's no wonder you can't sleep," he added. Now that Potter's hat was gone, he could clearly see the ashy-coloured rings beneath his eyes.

"I don't want to sleep," Potter said, his tone flat. "I don't particularly want your concern, either."

Draco remained silent, watching as Harry arranged his eggs onto a plate and began to dig in with gusto, washing down each bite with steaming gulps of tea. Once he'd tucked in, Potter leaned back in his chair and wadded his napkin into a ball, his expression now weary and...darkly unsatisfied. As if the meal he'd relished only minutes before was now going topsy-turvy in his gut, and had left him wishing he hadn't sampled the food in the first place.

"So...find a way to keep yourself entertained while I was gone?" Potter asked, tossing the shredded napkin over his shoulder.

"Not really. I would have read a book, but the ones you own seem to all involve complicated heists and boring descriptions of Muggle technology."

"Yeah...mystery and spy novels. I got them all at a second-hand shop," Potter said, making it sound as if he himself had yet to read a single one.

"Oh," Draco said, disinterested. "Spying is quite the popular Muggle pastime, isn't it?" he asked, thinking vaguely of Granger, who--if she was indeed a spy--made the whole enterprise seem remarkably unappealing.

"What d'ya mean?" Harry sounded tired now as he carried his plate over to the sink.

Draco yawned and glanced at the clock; it was almost five in the morning. "Oh, you know. Granger claiming to be a spy and all. Just another mudblood's delusion of grandeur, I suppose."

"What?"

There was a clatter as Potter abruptly dropped his fork and plate into the sink. The tone in his voice wasn't weary now, and he spoke with a piercing edge.

"Oh...bloody hell, Potter...not _mudblood_. I meant...you know, _Muggle_. Same difference, anyway."

"Hermione's a _spy_ you said? Did I hear you right?" Potter looked fully startled now, his face chalky in the dim lamp light. His hands opened and closed, fingers twitching as he bored Draco with his eyes.

"Well...so she said." Draco shrugged, uneasiness slowly washing over him. Should he tell Potter about seeing Granger in Azkaban? He really didn't fancy talking about dreary Azkaban at this hour, when he should by all rights be sound asleep, insuring his complexion against premature aging and the like. "I mean..." he said, choosing his words carefully. "She's your friend. You'd know about it better than I would."

Potter closed his eyes for several seconds. "Malfoy," he said, finally opening them, and even through the semi-darkness they leapt out in vivid green. "You're the first living wizard I've seen or heard from in the last three years. Until a few weeks ago, I hadn't even thought of Hermione--not even her name crossed my mind. If I had passed her on the street, I may not have even noticed her."

Draco remained in his seat, his mouth struggling to form a response. "You're kidding," he finally said.

_Oh, but he's not. Harry Potter a kidder? Not likely. Gryffindors can't even _take_ a joke, let alone make one._

"I'm not," Potter said, shaking his head in denial. The flat expression in his eyes confirmed that he spoke the truth.

"I don't understand. Did someone obliviate you? Were you so keen on battling the Dark Lord that you stupidly cursed yourself by accident?" Draco didn't mean to sound so critical...actually, he did. It was just like Potter to waltz into his life and prove to be useless. Draco--managing to avoid, for the moment, the fact that it had been _he_ who waltzed into Potter's life--felt his last hopes of ever making it back to the wizarding world shrivel away in a single breath.

"Doesn't much matter," Potter said, pushing away from the sink and opening the refrigerator. He pulled out a bottle of wine and began to uncork it.

"I thought you weren't a drinking man," Draco said, raising an eyebrow.

"Shopkeeper downstairs always pushes this half-priced rot on me," Potter said, grimacing as he took a drink straight from the bottle. Moving back to the table, he offered the bottle to Draco, who stared at it disdainfully before gripping the neck and taking back a long pull. It was thick and syrupy--not at all like the French vintages his Father had served--and he coughed roughly before handing the bottle back.

"Does she still have all that hair?" Potter asked, his voice rather distant and wistful as he dropped his chin into his cupped hand, his other hand clutching the bottle. "She really hated her hair."

"Of course she had hair...she's a bit young to have gone bald," Draco said, momentarily distracted by the question, which was a pointless one, he thought, as Granger's hair had never been her best selling point--not that she'd had many to begin with. He briefly considered describing the mudblood's silly attempt to pull off life as a blonde, but then decided it didn't much matter. Potter's weird series of revelations were much more pressing, and had replaced Draco's general sense of unease with a faint sort of fury. "I'm serious Potter. What in fuck happened to you? What kind of person would leave Hogwarts behind for...._this_," he said, indicating the flat with his hands. "I always knew you were a bit off--hanging out with the Weasel and his Mudblood girlfriend, fainting because of one silly Dementor...but really, to just stupidly _forget_ our world? Just how mad are you?"

Potter's face darkened. "It doesn't take much to loosen your tongue, does it?"

"I'm a Malfoy," Draco said, throwing his head back haughtily. "We're not in the habit of mincing words to spare the feelings of others." Deep down, a tiny part of him was warning that he was steering the conversation in an extremely foolish direction, but he seemed unable to stop talking.

"Of course not." Potter's bloodshot eyes blinked lazily as he passed the bottle back over. "You haven't changed. The fact that I _have_ must be an unpleasant surprise."

Draco drank deeply, then answered: "An annoying surprise, at any rate. I'm starting to think you won't be much use to me..."

_Shut up-Shut up-Shut up-Shut up-Shut up_

"...I need to get back to the real world, and you want to mope around pretending it doesn't even exist. What a sorry pair we make."

"I agree." Then, with no visible hesitation, Potter reached out and swiped at Draco's chin. When he pulled his hand away, his fingers were smeared with wine. "You're a messy drunk," he said lightly, rubbing his fingertips together.

Draco's hand shot up to his chin and lingered there stupidly, tongue working at the sour taste that filled his mouth. A hazy montage of pink neon and bronzed men in skimpy loin-cloths was swimming forth in his mind, causing him to slink back into his seat. "Potter, are you gay or something?"

Potter half-grinned, though the expression was shadowed and hard. "Or something, I guess."

"Because I have a fiancée..."

"That must be nice." Potter's expression scarcely changed as he tipped back the remaining wine into his mouth.

"Somae....Somae DeSilver. The Baron's daughter."

"The who?" Potter looked blank.

"Baron Florian DeSilver? Jesus, Potter. Only one of the richest wizards in all of Europe."

"Ah," Potter said, though there was no recognition present in his voice. "Somae, is it?"

"Yes. She attended Beauxbatons."

"Pretty?" Potter's tone was one of neutral disinterest, and Draco was struck with the notion that he was doddering on so that they could converse without actually _saying_ anything. Not that Draco minded, particularly; he wasn't keen on sharing late-night sob stories with Potter, but he _did _want Potter to snap to it and offer a sensible plan to get him out of this run down flat and back to his cosy Manor.

"Yes, quite. But it really doesn't matter, Potter...I can't even contact her now. Unless you can actually do something of use and--"

Draco's words were cut off when Potter thrust forward--his movement both determined and casual at once, somehow--and began to worry at the knotted draw-strings of the pyjama trousers Draco was wearing, loosening them enough to send his hand sliding down the hollow plane of his abdomen, then down further yet, his grasp hot and wine-sticky, causing Draco to suck in his breath and pull away.

"Potter...what the fuck are you doing..." he hissed, slitting his eyes. Potter's hand had found what it was looking for, and Draco, while alarmed by the fact that this was _Potter's hand_...touching, well, _his dick_, was unable to pull away completely, his response to sudden, too severe, to fully ignore. The touch was rough, but warm and human and...

_What in mudbloody hell is Potter doing? _

"Be quiet," Potter said, his face pale and vaguely infuriated as he bent over the tiny table, his hand working with quick expertise.

"Eat shit," Draco croaked before tilting his head back in abandon, closing his eyes so he at least wouldn't have to look into Potter's face when he inevitably came. Potter himself indeed possessed the gift of dexterity, and the finish was almost painfully quick. Somewhere beyond the dull ocean thrum that filled his ears, Draco could hear himself moaning in the process, his mind shrinking away, thoughts blurry with confusion.

_What am I letting him do?_

The warning thought came too late; his task complete, Potter sat back and wiped his hands on his trousers, then brushed a spray of fine perspiration from his forehead. Then he picked the bottle off the table and took it into the kitchen area, tossing it carelessly into a dustbin where it shattered noisily. After a minute or so of catching his breath, Draco did the only thing he could think of, what his instincts were urging upon him; he began to laugh.

"What is it now?" Potter asked, frowning.

"Just dotty enough to fancy a Malfoy then, are you Potter?" Draco said, his voice thick, wobbly around the edges. "How terribly _rich_..."

Potter stopped at the kitchen sink, his back to Draco, and was silent for several seconds. Then he pivoted around and marched back towards Draco, his stride determined. Draco tried to shrink away as he leaned in and grasped him by the shirt collar, hauling him up and out of his chair in one strong, smooth motion. Potter's jaw was set, and he looked at Draco evenly, his face just close enough to cause a vaguely panicky feeling to run riot in Draco's gut.  He knew from experience that if Potter hit him, he wouldn't hold back.

"Get out," Potter said, his tone dreadfully calm.

"What? Potter, I--" Draco stammered, unable to finish because Potter chose that moment to shove him away. He stumbled backwards, nearly falling over the sofa cushions strewn about on the floor. Noticing them, Potter plucked one up, along with the blanket Draco had been sleeping with, and pushed both into Draco's arms. "I'm going to sleep now," he said. "I want you out."

"But where do I...?"

"Just go," Potter insisted, guiding him towards the flat's front door and depositing him in the hallway outside. Then he said nothing--no_ goodbye_, no _get back to you later_--firmly shutting the door in Draco's face.

Draco stared at the door for several minutes, certain that a piteous Potter would open up at any minute. _Very funny, Potter_, Draco said in his head, ready to deliver the words when he finally appeared.

But he didn't; a few creaks came from behind the shut door, then all was dead quiet. Once accepting that he'd actually been turned out for the night, Draco sat down on the floor of the draughty corridor, hugging the blanket around his shoulders and looking from left to right, his eyes wide. Aside from a dim light bulb hanging over the stairway, the corridor was dark and quiet. Draco finally laid on his side, propped up by the sofa cushion, half-dazed as he tried to sort out the peculiar events that had just taken place. He supposed he ought to have been more upset at Potter for jerking him off in such an uninvited manner--and he very well might have been if the act hadn't been so mechanical and completely lacking in intimacy. As it was, it hadn't been much different from what Draco usually did to his body when he was alone in the dark. No, he was more perplexed as to _why _Potter had done it. Because whatever had happened between them wasn't at all about sex....it was about something else.

The more he sat and thought about it, the more his unease grew, flooding away his former sense of righteousness and leaving him feeling much as he had during the day's previous hours, as he had walked alone in a world he didn't understand; worse yet, he felt cowed, as if he had misbehaved and the result was a sharp slap to the face. If Potter had just tried to kiss him or something...well, Draco could have handled that--even if it meant conking the daft fool over the head with the wine bottle. If Potter had just wanted his body…well, so what? Lots of people did. It had never occurred to Draco that Potter hated him as much as he had always hated Potter. But now the truth was blazingly evident, and Draco understood just how much he was unwanted.

He shivered and tugged the blanket, willing it to take on the shape of a welcoming embrace, though it was nothing more than a poor substitute. Exhausted, he closed his eyes and slept.

***

_It had been his only request: _"Bring me the boy". _The identity of the boy being obvious, I had only two options before me: align myself with Dumbledore and refuse, or align myself with the Dark Lord and comply. Neither option was appealing at that moment, as both spelled my untimely end. So I did the selfish thing: I saved myself. I feel no guilt in that--it is human instinct to save ones' self, especially when weakened and in physical pain. But then again, at what cost?_

_"Kill the boy and you insure his martyrdom," I said, avoiding Voldemort's reptilian glare, yet careful not to avoid it so much that he think me deceitful. "Being familiar with religion and prophecies, I imagine I don't have to explain to you what an impact such martyrdom will have."  _

_He said nothing, but I detected a mental hiss. He pulled away from my line of vision, moving back into the darkness, and I felt relief at being momentarily released from his gaze. What I said to him was not a charade: Harry Potter, dead at the hands of Voldemort, would only guarantee that a good majority of the wizarding world shake loose their terror and take up sword against him, swearing to avenge the death of the Boy Who Lived. Megalomaniac as he was, Voldemort knew what I said was true.  What he did not know was the entirety of the prophecy—if he had, he would have never accepted such advise.  But I was convinced I had him fooled, had him believe that this time around, he would have to  play from the shadows if he wanted to win.  _

_I might have left it at that but didn't know if it would be enough. That was the most trying aspect of being in the Dark Lord's service--never knowing when you had gone too far, when you had not gone far enough. _

_"There are other ways to destroy him, you realise," I said, curling away from the sight of Karkaroff's putrid, greying form. "The boy's power lies not in his magic--I as his teacher can verify this--but only in his legend."_

_Voldemort shook slightly--in anger, not fear. Never fear. "Go on, Severus," he said, his tone vitriolic._

_"Destroy the legend, and you destroy the boy," I said simply, though I was internally shuddering at my casual words. I did not like Harry Potter. I did not want him destroyed. I wanted only to live.  I wanted Harry to live long enough to destroy Voldemort, as he was destined to._

_And then, in that silence that was punctuated only by the crackling of a cold, platinum-coloured fire, I saw light fill the Dark Lord's eyes. Sharp, painful light...the light of inspiration. _

_I knew then whom I had saved, and whom I had sent to his doom. _

***

Snape couldn't sleep. Strange shadows crawled along the ceiling, and even when he closed his eyes, he could still see them there--sense them. So he sat up instead, his long frame cramped and weary in the confines of the lumpy sofa he was resting on. The flat was almost as quiet as his dungeon had been, its silence breached only by the occasional sputter of a car, passing just outside.

The evening had not gone well; after realising that her maps were a failure, Hermione had gone silent and accusatory, her defiant posture a clear indication that she was somehow blaming Snape for all that had transpired. Shortly thereafter, she had announced that she was retiring for the evening, and instructed Weasley to make Snape up a bed. Weasley, still clearly less-than-thrilled by his presence, had nonetheless complied. As he handed over a pile of woolly blankets, he said only one thing:

"She's going to demand that you tell us what you know, after she's had her sleep. Just so you know."

Snape had only nodded. He was prepared to divulge everything, eventually. He had not originally envisioned Hermione as the one he would lay his confessions before, but he was tired of allowing secrets to fester within him. And if the information he possessed aided her in her misguided quest, so be it. He still stood by his original line of thinking: even if Harry Potter were to be found, he would not be the person she remembered. Not even remotely.

As his eyes strained through the darkness, Snape could make out the outlines of the blonde wig that was perched on a desk lamp at a ridiculous angle--a reminder, perhaps, that however seriously Hermione claimed to take her 'work', there was at least a fraction of escapism involved in it. Not that Snape necessarily blamed her--escapism was common in these times. After three long years of unclear information and false-leads, wizards and witches weren't sure just what kind of war they'd entered into, whether the enemy was Voldemort or their own government; as such, they found solace in frivolity and gossip, the more low-brow aspects of the wizarding world. Snape himself wasn't much different, having invested so much time in investigating the bottom of a bottle these last few months.

Hermione Granger's problem was that her escapism prevented her from accepting that Potter might have simply given up on the whole business of magic; she preferred to imagine him held hostage, or working incognito somewhere, unable to reveal his location for the sake of everyone's protection. But then again, the option of giving up was not really in Hermione's vocabulary; she fought against all and everything that opposed her, no matter the cost, and until just now, she had probably always assumed that Potter was fashioned the same way. Hers was a type of pig-headed stubbornness that Snape both loathed and admired, but that same stubbornness had never been Potter's way. Instead, Potter had always struck Snape as an uneven looking-glass that reflected the emotions of those closest to him--he had believed in the wisdom that Dumbledore had offered, time and time again; he was angered by the same things that angered the tempestuous Ron Weasley, and he had mustered up passion to match Hermione's own when the situation called for it. Potter's actions had always been crafted by his need to fit in and find acceptance, by his desperate desire to live with the destiny that he didn't, in essence, deserve.

A harsh viewpoint, perhaps. But what had Potter really _done _to defeat Voldemort? Nothing, really. He'd merely escaped with his very young life, and had inadvertently damaged Voldemort's own in the process. And sometime around his own fifth year, the truth of this fact had begun to dawn on Potter himself.  He had changed; grown despondant and angry.  He had been unhappily forced to reclaim his hero status in order to sway a doubting public—to sway his doubting _self_, perhaps—and in doing so had lost so much.

On the first day of classes in 1997, Potter's belongings had been owled to Dumbledore's office; there was no accompanying message or note, no clue as to what might have happened to the young wizard. Concerned that bodily harm had befallen Potter, the Headmaster had sent Moody and Lupin out to investigate. In a few days' time, they returned with Harry in tow--a frightened, struggling boy who appeared to not know his own Professors, who seemed unable to recognize any of the castle's surroundings. For reasons unknown to him at the time, Snape had been called to Dumbledore's quarters to witness the boy's return.

It was not a pleasant sight. Potter had to be physically restrained by Moody and Lupin, locked between their arms while alternately screaming and sobbing, his face red and tear-streaked. He had been dirty and smelly, his glasses gone, his body trembling. The most disquieting thing, however, had been the boy's refusal to open his eyes; whenever he did squint one open he let out a fresh yelp, as if the sight of their concerned faces was the very thing driving him mad.

"What's been done to him?" Moody had demanded, looking quite ill. Dumbledore ignored Moody and instead spoke to Potter, saying his name--_Harry?...Harry?_--over and over again, as if trying to penetrate the terror the boy was fully engulfed in.

"I don't know," Dumbledore finally admitted, only after touching the boy's firey brow once then immediately pulling back as if he'd just received a burn. "But it would appear that..._nothing's_ been done to him."

"How can you say that?" Lupin had cried, upset. But for once, Snape was in agreement with the Headmaster. Potter's behaviour was not in line with one who had been cursed, but rather far more resembled that of one who had simply jumped off the deep end into sheer insanity. Dumbledore was at a loss as to why--outwardly, at least, though his quiet, meaningful glances in Snape's direction indicated that he was considering each and every possibility.

After much argument about how to next proceed, Dumbledore finally hushed them all with a single glance. He pulled the traumatised boy aside and, out of earshot, spoke very softly with him for several long minutes. None of them could be sure what was being said, but it seemed as if Potter answered his headmaster at least once, and after doing so, Dumbledore let him be, returning to them with a grim expression upon his ancient face.

That one expression had said it all; Snape knew at once, without asking, that Harry Potter's looking-glass persona had finally been shattered. He didn't know how, or what had happened, but the boy must have found reason to look within himself...and had retreated fully when he saw that there was nothing of real substance looking back at him.

"Not sleeping, I see," Hermione's voice came out from the dark, somewhere behind him, and startled him from his thoughts. He craned his neck and saw that she had come in from the hallway, still fully dressed and be-wigged, as if she had not yet retired for the night. Her posture was tense, her arms crossed before her chest, but it was too dark for him to read her facial expression.

"And neither are you," Snape said lightly, stretching out his legs.

"I couldn't," she said, and moved from the doorway towards him, finally settling down on the wide arm of the sofa near his feet, her body turned towards the window that faced the street below. "I've been thinking about what happened earlier tonight," she continued, her voice tight. "You made me feel dreadfully stupid down there, in case you didn't know."

"A talent of mine," Snape said, unable to disguise the weariness in his voice.

"Agreed," she said, her back stiffening. "I'm used to solving problems on my own--with a little help from my friends, perhaps--but to forget such a basic tenant of wand frequency is...well, embarrassing."

Snape nodded slowly, dimly aware that she could not see the gesture.

She continued on. "So I was thinking that I could use your help. As in, I help you find Draco, you help me find Harry." Her words ended in a rush, as if expecting him to flat out refuse.

"How do you know Harry wants to be found?" Snape asked, mentally noting how strange it was to call Potter _Harry_.

She turned and faced him. "Maybe he doesn't. I'm not going to force him to rejoin the old posse or anything, Snape. I just want to know that he's alive and well...for a start."

"Very well," Snape said, then lowered his eyes gravely. "Weasley told me that you'd demand an explanation from me, and I'm prepared to give one."

She sighed. "Not now, if you don't mind. Save the confession for daylight--right now I just want to know that you'll help us."

He studied her face silently, noting that her brow knitted in the middle when she was tense, and that she was gnawing at the edge of her lip expectantly. Sign himself on to help a couple of feisty Gryffindors? He weighed the humiliation of working with a Weasley versus working for the Minister of Magic and was surprised to discover that, hands down, he preferred the former. Not because he _liked _Hermione or her Weasley friend, but because with them he at least stood a chance of behaving in a fully human way--a way that for him meant giving orders, being taken seriously, and not having to feign the dull pleasantries of everyday life. Arrogance and superiority was his birthright, and having stunted it for so long felt like breathing underground for several bleak, cold months.

With this thought, Snape straightened up and took in a long, dignified breath, feeling his chest expand in a liberating sort of way. "Miss Granger, I will work with you on condition that you never question my authority, obey my commands at all times, keep your friend Weasley on a leash, and let me wear that watch you currently have around your wrist. Unless you can agree to offer me all of these things, I plan to leave this horrid city first thing in the morning--Fudge be damned."

Hermione's mouth slung open in surprise, and for a few seconds Snape was nearly positive that she was going to protest--quite vocally, at that--but she instead surprised him by leaning forward and studying at him intently. Snape stared back; her face was so close that he could make out a fine strand of unremarkable brown hair at her temple, just visible beneath the mass of the red wig, looking delicate and hopelessly out of place.

"Someone start a parade," she finally said, grinning ever-so-slightly. "Old Snape is back in command--or is it back to _Professor_ Snape, now that you're in charge?"

"Snape is fine," he grunted. Privately, he was getting used to being called 'Snape'; the past twenty four hours had given him new appreciation for the name that had always slightly embarrassed him. The way the word flung from Hermione's mouth, casual and matter-of-factly, made it sound tough and resilient...to hear _Snape _in that tone made him feel like…'Ace', or 'Spike'.

"Just remember that as second in command, I expect to be heard," she said, standing up and brushing off her dress.

"It would be impossible _not_ to hear you." Snape rolled his eyes, grateful that the darkness kept her from seeing him do so. Hermione made a small noise as if to retort, but was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass, loud and coming from below.

"What was that?" She asked, jumping slightly. Snape said nothing, only stood and made his way to the stairs, gesturing for her to follow. It occurred to him only briefly to be cautious, but then he remembered that this was the Muggle world, and that the dangers within it were easily contained with a simple spell or two--such a predictable place it was, really.

Downstairs, the source of the clamour was immediately clear. The glass in the large front window of the office was shattered and someone stood outside, working his meaty fist through the hole he'd made, blood running off his knuckles and onto the glass shards that glinted on the floor below. He moved slowly, clumsily, and both Snape and Hermione watched for several seconds, dumb-struck, before he gave up using his hands and kicked in the rest of the window, glass spraying out with shrapnel-force.

"_Stupefy!_" Snape pointed his wand, aware that Hermione was just behind him, ducking the shower of glass. The curse hit the man-thing dead-on, but instead of falling as he should have, he merely let out a grunt, then continued lumbering in through the shattered window, paying no mind as the jagged edges sliced into his legs; bright ribbons of blood appeared and dripped down to his ankles, pattering faintly on the tiles.

"Who is that?" Snape hissed, pulling Hermione up from the floor by the neck of her dress. The room was dark, but rather than turning the lights on to get a better look at the intruder, Snape ducked back into the shadows, prompting Hermione to do the same.

"The landlord? How should I know..." Hermione said, panting lightly. "But my wand...I left it upstairs."

"It seems that it may not do us any good," Snape murmured. The intruder was inside now, breathing heavily as he lurched towards them. Snape squinted, just barely able to make out the thing's sagging, un-natural features: his face was slack-jawed, his eyes vacant. Even as he moved in their direction, his eyes did not focus on anything, and Snape noted that he moved as if programmed--in short, stunted gestures. Also, the thing smelled; enough so that Snape was touched with a hint of nausea as its sour breath wafted towards him. It was a scent of pungent decay, and the small noise of disgust that came from his side indicated that Hermione could smell it too.

"Oy! What's all the noise about down here?" The door at the top of the stairs opened, sending down a shaft of light. Hermione moved out into it, and Snape could see that her face was flushed with tension--a hint of excitement there too.

"Ron! Get my wand!" She hissed.

"Eh?" Ron leaned over the edge of the steps and squinted at them. "What are you doing down there in the dark...with Snape?" he asked, an edge of accusation entering his voice.

"Never mind that--"

Before Hermione could finish, the intruder--who had until now been blindly groping about the room--flung himself toward her, growling in guttural, nonsensical syllables. Hermione tried to dodge him, but he was moving much faster than before, and Snape grimly watched on as she miscalculated and ducked too slowly, the man-creature's open palm striking her square in the forehead so that she was thrown back, landing in an untidy heap at the bottom of the stairs.

Snape could hear Ron yelling out, but the distinction of his words was drowned out by the thing's loud gasps and grunts, which came laboured from his chest as he turned from his downed victim. Snape's hand fisted around his wand, and just as he was deciding whether or not to use it the creature turned and charged, once again moving faster than before. Snape had no time to utter a spell as the thing crashed into him, the brute strength of his body utterly graceless; the blow sent him reeling through the curtains and into Hermione's map room, where a sharp desk corner caught him on the hip and sent him to the ground, cursing.

Massaging his aching hip, Snape tried to stand. What kind of creature was this? Seemingly immune to magic, he possessed a berserker's strength, but didn't speak and moved at random, as if working under the influence of a very potent _Imperius_. But Snape had never heard of _Imperius_ making someone or something physically stronger...and yet, even as he struggled to come to his feet, all of his muscles crying out in protest, Snape was struck with the realisation that he himself felt much _weaker_ than usual--as if the creature's presence had somehow sapped him of his own will and strength.

Crawling in on all fours, wheezing, it seemed that Hermione was experiencing the same duress. Ron followed, his face furious, and before Snape could cry out to stop him, he had rushed at the creature, leaping onto his back and shouting profanities.

Hermione crawled over to Snape's side. "What is that thing?" she whispered, her face twisting in horror as she watched the creature hoist Ron up and throw him across a table, glass breaking and paper flying as he slid crazily across the surface and landed on the floor not a half metre away from where Snape and Hermione were crouched.

"Ah fuck..." Ron moaned, his arm held to his chest protectively and bent at an unnatural angle.

"What does it want?" Hermione didn't take her eyes from the creature even as she pulled Ron over to them, handling him carefully. The thing was circling the room now, his hands roaming listlessly over counters and shelves as if in search of something.

"It's a sodding killer zombie...it wants to eat our brains," Ron said, his normally deep voice strung up in high panic.

"What brains?" Snape snarled, then shot a scowl at Hermione. "You've let him watch those Muggle movies, haven't--"

He was cut off by Hermione's bloodcurdling scream, her pale face looming in close as she wrapped her hands around his arm and dug in with her sharp nails. "STOP HIM!" she bellowed. "ANDY! HE'S GOT ANDY!"

Befuddled, Snape worked loose from her grasp, lightly swatting her away. Managing to look around the room at the same time, Snape could see that the thing did indeed have his arms hugged around the small cauldron. He hauled it from the desk and began to lumber away with it, moving back towards the front of the building.

"Andy...Andy!" Hermione wailed, her tone one of almost desperate heartache. "Oh, do something..."

_Do something yourself, Miss Granger. You're the clever one, aren't you? So why don't you just..._

Remembering that he had declared himself in charge, Snape got to his feet and began walking drunkenly towards the creature, his eyesight bleary, dizziness washing over him. Noticing his approach, it stopped and watched him almost curiously, arms still tight around the cauldron, the contents of which were frothing and glowing faintly, as if alarmed.

"Put that down, you staggering derelict," Snape snapped, using the dark tone that he had always used to cow inept first-year students on their first day of classes.

But this was no first-year student; even as the thing cocked its head--clearly not comprehending--Snape thought he glimpsed something murky and foul in those vacant eyes...something that was almost laughing at his own pathetic attempt to play hero. Or maybe that was Snape's own internal, caustic laughter. _Hero?_ He was nothing of the sort. Deep disgust rose up in his chest as he backed away, the first to make a gesture of defeat. Before he could back away fully, the thing unhooked one arm from the cauldron and gave Snape a mighty shove, sending him back into the desk again. Snape was hit in the small of his back this time, pain barking up and down his spine, and his legs and feet went watery and numb all at once, causing him to collapse to the ground.

Lost in the thunderous pain, Snape was jolted out of it by a sharp blast of noise, sounding like a whip-crack as it punctured the silence. Eyes startled open, Snape saw the thing stagger and grunt in surprise, almost dropping the cauldron as it reached up to tend to its shoulder, which had begun to spray forth dark gouts of blood. Confused, Snape looked around frantically; back where he'd left her, Hermione was crouched against the wall with her legs pulled up to her chest, her face white and strained as she held a small pistol outstretched in her shaking hand. Snape watched her thin chest rise as she inhaled, then, just before she pulled the trigger a second time, saw her hand steady.

It seemed that the creature fell at the exact same moment that the _bang! _sounded, the cauldron popping from his hold and rolling away. Dropping the pistol, Hermione scrambled away from the wall and fetched it up, studying the contents with concern, her lips mouthing words that Snape couldn't make out.

"He's okay..." she breathed, steadying the cauldron back on the desk.

"Help me to my feet," Snape said, but even as she pulled him up by the arms, he felt some of his vigour and strength returning; still, she wrapped an arm around his waist and assisted him as they both hobbled towards the outstretched body. And a body it was: an almost-bloodless hole had been shot into the upper-right of the thing's forehead, and without bothering to check for a pulse, Snape could see that he was dead.

"Nice shot," Ron croaked, still nursing his arm a few feet away. Hermione said nothing, instead letting go of Snape and kneeling down beside the body, studying its face closely.

"Be careful," Snape cautioned. The thing had reeked of the living dead when it had first broken in--who was to say it couldn't somehow come back to life now?

Hermione stared at it so long, though, that Ron finally broke the silence by asking, "What is it? Still breathing?"

"No, it's not that..." Hermione began, and Snape could hear her swallow heavily before finishing. "I know him." She paused, and in the silence that followed the sun began to rise, casting long, golden filaments over the man's face, bathing it in light until it could be seen as quite clearly human, and not a monster at all.

****************************************

Thanks to Susanna, Tien, and Reena for kicking my ass on this chapter, which went through four thorough revisions before I could put it to bed. Love also to Franzi and Resmiranda, who are always willing to listen to my feint groanings.

The song quoted at the beginning of the chapter is actually by Ladytron, not Chicks on Speed. But the band-name "Chicks on Speed" was just too apropos in this case.

The creature that attacks poor Andy may resemble Lillith's golem, but is in fact completely human...as you'll see in future chapters. No hijacking of Lillith's fic is intended.

I have a livejournal if you want updates: www.livejournal.com/~fick_l_rene

In Chapter 8: Harry will feel shitty and Draco will most likely continue to wear out his welcome. Hermione considers putting a post-traumatic Andy in therapy; Snape ponders his dark and weighty past. Surprise, surprise!


	9. Chapter Eight: Bring on the Daylight

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill!**

**Chapter Eight: Bring on the Daylight**

_But I shot a man in __Reno__, just to watch him die..._

She was a long way from Reno, but Hermione could relate to the sentiment just the same. There was a man bleeding on the floor of her phony detective agency--well, not bleeding anymore. Stop the heart and you stop the flow, everything funnels down to a trickle. And the Ladysmith .38 was an odd chunk of metal in her hand, no longer a mere accessory--like a wig or a press-pass--not something handy that offered the illusion of power, and the more dangerous illusion of safety. She had never expected to actually use it.

When dressing up to the teeth, à la Rhoda Rhodes, she often charmed her eyes to appear that same blue-steel colour of the gun barrel, keeping the weapon in a small holster around her thigh. Her wand she kept in her pocket or boot--removing it only in anticipation of sleep. But then a man had attacked, leaving her weak and crawling along the floor, helpless as poor Andy was hauled up and away. She thought it was something like dumb luck that caused her hand to brush up against the pistol, and something more like plain stupidity that prompted her to draw back and take aim.

Funny how it wasn't so hard to hit a moving target; then again, it hadn't felt much different from aiming her wand and casting a spell...only this time there was the disconcerting, accompanying orchestra of blood spattering to the floor, the sharp smell of gunpowder burning at her nostrils. Now crouched at the downed man's side, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and felt out for a pulse where she knew none would be. Letting out a thin sigh, she gently laid his arm across his chest, then reached up and closed his eyelids. The last thing she needed was to see Arlan Brewster's eyes looking at her with silent, entreating accusation.

"Who is he?" Ron asked quietly, still cradling his wounded arm.

Hermione looked up in surprise, realising that she had completely forgotten that Snape and Ron were both in the room with her. They stood not far away, their faces equally pale, though of the two only Ron looked frightened, shying away from her gaze as if this were all a bit too much for him to take. Snape looked predictably grim, though in his eyes she thought she glimpsed a terse sort of approval. It did little to make her feel better. His own past was murkier than week-old coffee--who knew how many people he'd slaughtered for kicks and giggles, be it a result of following orders or simply wreaking havoc in a wacky D.E. hazing ritual.

"What would make a man behave that way?" she asked distractedly, directing the words at Snape in particular. She gingerly touched her hand to her forehead, feeling the goose-egg lump that had formed. "He was so strong...I thought he wasn't human."

"We were so weak," Snape muttered, crouching down beside her, his eyes scanning the body. "Look," he said, parting Brewster's robes open, revealing plain, serviceable clothing beneath. "He is a tall, well-built man...but no more so than Mister Weasley here." He glanced up at Ron, visually comparing the two. "Yet even Ron fell prey to his blows."

"I've been meaning to go to the gym," Ron muttered, turning red. "Membership ran out last month."

"You said you knew him," Snape prompted, prodding Hermione's shoulder a bit. "Who is he?"

"Arlan Brewster."

Only Ron reacted, wincing as if she'd just twisted his bad arm. "Brewster? The Azkaban guard who fancies blonde chippies in sailor suits? _Fuck..._"

"Azkaban...?" Snape asked, his face darkening.

Hermione nodded, explaining how she had coerced a press-pass from Fudge and used it to visit Malfoy in Azkaban, detailing how she had to first endure a painfully long-winded conversation with the new head of Azkaban security, Arlan Brewster. As she spoke she felt as if she were re-living a nightmare from childhood, something hazy and vague, bright only in the parts that were painful to look at--the feeling of a Dementor breathing against her neck, making her go weak in the knees...and not the pleasant, romantic sort of knee-weakness, either. Swept over by a sudden undertow of nausea, Hermione absently shouldered up to Snape for support, forgetting it was him until he jerked away, evidently startled.

"Sorry," she muttered, reaching up to massage her head again.

He looked her over with an expression of...annoyance? Concern? She couldn't tell anymore. He raised a single hand to her face, fingers hovering just over the bump on her head. "I sincerely hope you don't have a concussion." His tone was biting, as if she had run into Brewster's fat fist on purpose.

"That makes two of us."

"I don't get it," Ron said, lowering himself to where they were sitting. "Why did Brewster come here? And who's his steroid supplier?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Snape glowered. "He wanted your cauldron." He gestured in the direction of Andy, who had been rescued and placed upon a high shelf, still chittering slightly as if traumatised. Hermione considered this possibility. It was true that Andy was one of a kind in that information about the Ministry could be retrieved _secretly _from his contents--the cauldrons that the Ministry itself used were warded to prevent any sort of 'hacking', as it were. But Brewster was a Ministry employee, and he probably had a cauldron of his own back at the prison office, so what use would he have for Andy? None...unless he wanted to look something up without the Ministry tracking his cauldron-activities.

"But he works for the Ministry," Ron said doubtfully, as if reading Hermione's mind. "Got a compu-cauldron of his own, I reckon."

Hermione nodded in careful agreement. "Not to mention that he wasn't very subtle with the whole break-in attempt, was he? He's _dead _now...is nabbing Andy really worth that?" Her voice ended in a high question mark, wavering with uncertainty.

Snape glared at them as if they were imbeciles. "Of course Andy's worth it...to _someone_. Our friend Brewster was just the messenger--or, more accurately, the pick-up boy. He was clearly acting under someone else's influence...couldn't you tell?"

Ron blinked. "He was?"

"Like _Imperius_?" Hermione supplied half-heartedly. She was feeling quite dull-headed and slow by this point, but was willing to place the blame on her aching head for the time being.

"_Not_ like _Imperius_," Snape corrected. "Those under _Imperius _can still be dissuaded by curses and hexes...and in case you failed to notice, I was unable to stop this man with my wand."

"Sorry," Hermione said, gritting her teeth. "Bit busy with the whole 'fighting to stay conscious' thing to notice a little case of wand inadequacy." The insult came out weak; something about having just killed a man sucked the fun right out of sarcastic banter, it seemed.

Snape pursed his lips in disapproval, but before he could fling back a barb of his own, Ron reached across him and pulled something from Brewster's robe pocket. "Look..." he said, holding out the dead man's wand. "This is what we need to find Malfoy, isn't it?"

Hermione nodded slowly, remembering how Snape had exposed the flaw in her earlier plan to tap into Draco's implanted charm. Looking around the room, she saw that that plan would never work now; in his search and destroy mission for Andy, Brewster had ripped most of the maps right off the wall, and their shredded remains were now littered around the room, damaged beyond the repair of either spellotape or binding charm . The magic in them would never function properly again, and they couldn't afford to wait around for weeks while Fred and George churned out a new map of London.

"The maps are a lost cause," she said. "And we had better get rid of that wand fast."

Snape nodded in agreement. "No doubt Fudge's Aurors will be looking for this Brewster once he's discovered missing."

Ron squirmed. "We need a place to lay low. Not the Burrow..." He looked at Snape, sudden inspiration lighting his face. "You must have a hideout, right? A place where you stash your illegal dark arts doo-dads or hold Death Eater revivals? Why don't we just go there? Live off rats and barrels of wine for a few days..."

"I have no hideout, you ninny," Snape said, though his tone was remarkably calm. Hermione was impressed; that Snape was able to cue into Ron's admittedly strange and ill-timed sense of humour was quite a feat.

"We don't need to lay low," she said, smiling confidently at the pair of them, even though she was close to full-on panic inside, her head pounding painfully against the suddenly too-thin walls of her skull. "I'm going to turn myself in."

Ron looked aghast, protesting at once, but Snape only managed to look thoroughly disgusted--more so than usual, even. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, squinting at her over the crest of his over-large nose.

She shrugged, fighting to remain casual. "We all know that the Ministry will sniff out what's happened here eventually. Waiting will only make things worse."

Snape drew up to his feet and planted his hands on his hips, looking down at her as if she were a particularly bothersome potion that he hadn't properly stirred. "If that's guilt on your face, girl, best get rid of it before I slap it clean off," he said, the threat in his tone undeniable. "You're old enough to know the difference between heroics and plain foolishness, and I don't believe for a second that anyone capable of firing a Muggle pistol is particularly interested in playing the martyr. So do spare us the act, Miss Granger. Even Weasley recognises that our best option is to clean up this mess and be on our way."

Ron, to his credit, looked a bit stunned at being included in Snape's side of the plan, but he did nothing to correct him, either, and instead turned to look staunchly at Hermione, as if to say _Yes, what he said! _

Hermione bit down hard and tasted coppery blood, all in effort to will her chin to stop quivering. "I'm doing this with or without your approval," she said, marvelling at how flat and unreal her voice sounded to her own ears.

Snape opened his mouth to speak, but Ron shot him a quick glance; something in his face must have given the older man pause, because he stood by silently when Ron leaned in close, speaking low so that only Hermione could hear him.

"Let's pretend it's just you and me here for a second...just you and me, like it's been for the last three years." His voice was close enough to come out as warm breath against the side of her face, smelling of milk and comfort, of all things Ron. "Bugger that," he said, his tone urgent. "You don't get cold feet when the game goes high-stakes."

"Yes, but--"

"We _wanted_ high stakes. Fuck if I'll let you weasel out now."

She smiled wanly. "You're the weasel, not me."

"But that's just it," he insisted, failing to return her smile, his face as grim as his freckles and wide blue eyes would allow. "You're _not _the weasel. Get it?" He swallowed, then glanced over once more at Brewster's outstretched body, paling visibly when lighting upon it.

Hermione knew what Ron wanted; he wanted rebel-Hermione...the girl with plenty to prove but nothing to lose. He had never cared much for the part of her that enjoyed research and books, nor that side of her that was prone to following rules and respecting authority. Forget how far her common sense had gotten them in the past, right now he needed a pissed off witch with a red-hot trigger finger.

Also...she had to admit that laying herself out to the mercy of Fudge's Aurors wouldn't get them any closer to finding Harry or Draco.

"I get it," she said, her voice stony. "I won't turn myself in. For now, anyway."

"A wise choice," Snape said, having overheard. "Though has it occurred to you that tonight's events might be construed as self defence?"

Hermione gazed up at him; he had been such a formidable fixture in her childhood, with his black cloaks that stunk of pickled frog spawn, his face that seemed so unfortunately built for nothing but scowls and frowns. She was surprised to be looking up at him as an ally, but that was what he was--even Ron seemed to recognise it. She didn't know if she liked Snape, but she was beginning to think she could put her trust in him.

"Self defence? _Stupefying_, maybe...but a bullet through the head?" She shook her head doubtfully.

"We tried _Stupefy_ to no avail," he reminded, tapping his wand against his wrist as if to illustrate its uselessness. "And there is your bruised head and Weasley's broken arm to account for."

"That's right," Ron chimed in. "Plus I didn't even think the bloke was human. I still say he was a dead ringer for a brain-sucking zombie."

"Enough with the zombies," Snape said, reaching out with his wand to give Ron a smart tap on the side of his head. "Were it a zombie, it certainly would have done us all a favour and sucked _your _brain first."

"Not so. Hermione's the clever one...it would have gone for her first."

"Perhaps it would have simply seen yours as an hors d'oeuvre and Miss Granger's as the main dish...."

Hermione clapped her hands over her ears and let out a shriek fit for shattering wine goblets. "Shut up or sod off!" she raged. "We have a mess on our hands to clean up...and someone could have heard the gunfire. There's no time to bicker!"

"Right." Snape nodded succinctly and used his wand to set the room into motion. The scattered papers and books that surrounded them began to fly back on to shelves--not quite in their proper places, Hermione noticed, but that could always be fixed later.

"I'm going to head up and set my arm right," Ron said, years of brotherly scuffling having given him a knack for healing charms. "I'll fetch your wand while I'm up there."

She nodded lazily in response, noticing that neither of them seemed to have a brilliant plan for disposing of Arlan Brewster's body. Snape might have some old Death Eater tricks up his sleeve, but he certainly didn't seem eager to offer them up at the moment. As for the body itself, it was looking less and less real to her--it was a waxy mannequin, a forlorn crash-test dummy. It wasn't _really_ Brewster, that socially awkward Ministry worker who had a deep-seeded prejudice against all journalists who carried expensive handbags. She touched the tender spot on her head. _That_ Brewster couldn't have done this...could he?

As if pondering the same question, Ron lingered by the body rather than going upstairs, the early morning sun lighting his hair so that his expression was caught in an unreadable blaze.

"What is it?" she asked, squinting and cocking her head at him. In the back of the room Snape paused in his cleaning, drawing himself up and staring at Ron intently.

"I was just thinking that I feel rather sorry for him now," Ron said, his tone thick with confusion. "But when he busted in here I wanted to kill him--or if not him then myself. He radiated badness. I thought I'd never be clean again."

A dim chiming of bells--great big rusty ones--went off somewhere in the vortex of Hermione's memories. Something about Ron's words was painfully familiar, and she found that the feeling he described was accurate. Brewster had made her feel _unclean_--like something weak and small and unworthy. She had been sweaty and paralysed by nausea, a mutiny exploding in her gut so that she felt she soon might pass out. Either that or go eye-popping crazy. But she felt fine now, even if her mind did seem stuck on the speed of a squeaky hamster wheel.

"Ron," she began slowly, trying to visualize her thoughts so that she could adequately put them into words. "That feeling you had when Brewster broke down the door...did it remind you of anything?"

He circled the body, seeming deep in thought. "Yes," he finally said. "It reminded me of Professor Lupin."

Snape let out a thin, derisive noise. "How appropriate," he remarked, turning back to a broken shelf that needed mending.

"Professor Lupin?" Hermione shook her head with a frown. And yet... "Like the day we first met him on the train, back in third year?"

"Yes!" An expression best described as _Eureka__! _beamed across Ron's ruddy features.

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, scrambling to her feet and over to him, nearly skidding on loose shards of glass as she did so. "The Dementor! A Dementor came on the Hogwarts Express when we met Professor Lupin. Remember?"

"Say...that's right." He nodded in agreement, but Hermione could see that he hadn't quite caught up to where she was.

Snape, on the other hand, had. "A Dementor," he said, moving over to where they stood, stepping almost delicately around the body. "Yes, the possibility crossed my mind, but _how..._"

"Wait a second," Ron interrupted. "You're saying Brewster was actually a Dementor?"

"Not quite," Hermione said, her brain finally warming up again, excitement flushing all the way down to the tips of her fingers. "He was clearly still a human being, but magic didn't work on him--just like it doesn't work on a Dementor. A _Patronus _may have worked on him, but none of us thought to try that, did we?"

"He works in Azkaban with all those Dementors...do ya' think they somehow got to him? Infested his brain to make him do their evil bidding?" Ron looked excited now too, though in a decidedly different way--the way one might look when reading a particularly fast-paced novel or engrossing comic book. Snape, on the other hand, remained grim, his face still solemn and ash-coloured despite the beam of morning sunlight that fell over him.

"Think straight, you two," he hissed, pulling them close as if someone might overhear. "Have Dementors ever had an agenda of their own, other to consume? What interest would they have in one Muggle-born witch's novelty invention." He motioned over his shoulder, gesturing at Andy.

"So the Dementors were acting under someone else's orders, then," Hermione concluded, chin upheld staunchly.  "It's not as if they haven't strayed outside Ministry control before."

A sudden shower of broken glass sounded from somewhere behind them. All three of them whirled around to see a small woman kick the remaining glass from their front window, then she stepped through the empty space, a long brown cigarette leaking smoke in one hand, and a pink pussy-fur handbag clutched in the other. It was Nova, the Reflection's lounge singer who had, just a few afternoons prior, regaled both Hermione and Ron with her trademark husky rendition of "The Girl from Ipanema".

"The Dementors?" she asked, her voice like syrup rising through gravel, a most un-nerving sound. "That's Scotland's Football league, isn't it? I'm quite a fan."

"Nova?" Hermione stammered, instinctively clutching at both Ron and Snape. "Ah, what can I help you with?"

The songbird surveyed the destroyed room with passing interest, then finally let out a small, unimpressed grunt, as if to indicate she'd seen far more disorder in her day. "I have a case for you, Helen--someone keeps spray painting obscenities on my front door and I'll be a damned if I'm going to stand for it one second longer. Why, I don't even know what a "ducky sucky" is, let alone how to give one. Though if you're too busy to tuck in..."

"Not at all." Ron suddenly leapt forward, all shine and confidence as he held out his un-injured hand and took Nova's delicate paw into his own, shaking it in a gentlemanly way. "We here at Crookshanks' are always ready to take a case for a friend, no matter how big or small."

"I like you, Richard," Nova said, showing her uneven teeth as she smiled and poked him heartily in the stomach. "You remind me of my fourth husband, the Jewish plumber, God rest his soul..." she trailed off, suddenly noticing Snape, whose expression was that of an animal trapped in a freight train's blinding headlights.

"Who're you?" she asked, her mascara-ed lashes narrowing dramatically. "And who's the dead fellow on the floor?"

"Oh!" Hermione squeaked, looking frantically at Ron. "This is our client, Mister Nightshade," she said, indicating Snape. "The dead man is his...brother. He was shot last night at a brothel and....Mister Nightshade wants us to find out who the killer is. So, yes, we were just about to examine the body, weren't we Richard?"

"Righty," Ron chimed in, smiling winningly. "Unfortunately the vengeful brothel owners tried to torch the office while we slept. That's why it's such a frightful mess in here. Please pardon the dust."

"You don't want to mess with brothels," Nova said solemnly, nodding her approval. "I ought to know. Why don't you get back to me later this afternoon, then?" she suggested, holding out a business card.

"Oh, thank you, but we already know the way to Reflections," Hermione said, politely waving the card away.

"I'm at my second job today, Helen." Nova tucked the card into Hermione's hand, forcing her fingers around it. "Mondays I sing at a joint over on Old Compton Street. Only on Mondays, though, cos they've got a truck-load of young birds wanting to take stage over on that end of town, all thinking they got better chops than _me_, if you can imagine that."

"Of course," Hermione said distractedly, opening her hand to read the name on the business card. _The Pink Bishop_, it said, in curly pink letters. An address and phone number were listed in one corner and in the other there was a striking graphic of a chess piece.

"The Pink Bishop," Ron read over Hermione's shoulder, a smile still chiselled on his face. "We'll see you there later then, eh Nova?"

Hermione mimicked his smile, thinking her cheeks might soon split from the pain of such a forced expression, well aware that there was no way in hell they would be visiting Nova at The Pink Bishop today--not now and not ever. They had a body to clean up and a mystery to solve. The Crookshanks'cover was blown.

***

Harry Potter didn't know it, but he often dreamt of Hogwarts. He dreamt in colours brighter than any he'd ever seen in the real world, and the details of the castle were achingly accurate, right down to the fine blades of grass that grew on the Quidditch pitch. In his dream he wasn't a participant, but an observer gazing silently over his eleven year-old self, a full grown man who regarded that small boy as if seeing him from beyond the grave. The boy was happy, eyes wide in the discovery of his new magical world, his days packed full of adventure and new friends. To watch him filled Harry's dream self with bittersweet warmth...a warmth that verged on being too hot, too painful to the touch.

Tonight it was the same dream, the ghost of Harry's subconscious floating inconspicuously over the whole of the great hall, as large as the enchanted ceiling itself, and certainly just as see-through--starlight itself passed right through him, catching on the crystal goblets that students clasped in their hands.

He usually watched the boy-version of himself only, mesmerized by the low murmur of his laugh, tentative as it was, and the way his eyes widened in delight when food magically appeared at the table, as if it were a trick that got better each time he saw it. This time, though, his eyes were on another: a pale snarl of a boy in green-trimmed robes, who was not eating, not talking with his friends, but instead glared at the ceiling, his gaze not passing through Harry but trained directly on him, his eyes cold, grey as flint. Who was that boy? Malfoy... Ferret-face, they'd called him.

_Quit hiding up there, Potter. You're not fooling anyone_, the Malfoy boy said. But his voice wasn't that of a boy...it was Harry's own voice. The voice he possessed in the present, as a twenty-year old man.

Harry woke up at once.

As usual, he remembered nothing...or not quite. His own words still echoed in his head, and attached to them was the unwavering image of Draco Malfoy's young face, proud and pitiless. Harry sat up in bed, momentarily blinded by late morning sun that filled his bedroom, rumpled sheet clutched in each hand. The whispers of the dream were fading fast...and in its stead, something most unexpected whisked in. A memory. Not the blurry shadow of a memory, but a true, honest-to-goodness, vivid-as-a-photograph memory.

He remembered walking through Diagon Alley for the first time, Hagrid pointing out this and that at his side, his pockets loaded down with galleons and sickles. He had stepped into Madame Malkin's dress shop to purchase his very first set of school robes. There he had met horrible, haughty Draco Malfoy, with his curious way of drawling words out as if they meant nothing to him. Harry had disliked him at once, but had at the same time been curiously satisfied to have met him. The feeling was a bit like being a scientist who had discovered a killer plague; the discovery itself wasn't fun, but there was still comfort in gaining new knowledge, a better understanding of the world and its dangers. In the case of Malfoy, Harry had been relieved to discover that there were actually boys in the world who were more unpleasant than Dudley Dursley. It had given him a strange, warped optimism that his childhood maybe _hadn't _been the most doomed beginning a boy could experience. He had thought there was maybe hope for him after all.

Before Harry could explore the corners of the memory further, a much more recent one pushed through the groggy haze, heated and wine stained. His alcohol-and-pill hangover was not thick enough to obscure the image that now hung in the forefront of his mind: himself jerking off Draco Malfoy in the front room of his flat, nothing more than hand-to-dick contact despite the fact that only a dozen or so centimetres separated them from each other. All he had wanted was for Malfoy to _fucking shut up for a goddamn second_, but for some reason he'd found it downright impossible to simply ask him to turn off the motor-mouth, so he'd cut off the verbosity in the only way he knew how.

Harry let his feet hit the floor, which was chilly despite the sun flooding the room. Rubbing at his eyes sleepily, it occurred to him that it probably wasn't quite normal to solve day-to-day problems with random handjobs. But if there was one thing he'd learned in the last three years, it was that nearly _anything _could be accomplished if you knew the right wank to yank; in his experience the world wasn't an oyster, it was a burgeoning hard-on.

But Malfoy came from a world other than the one Harry now occupied--the _real_ world, as Malfoy himself had called it--one where you had to mind a different kind of wand if you wanted to get ahead. The utter shock on Malfoy's face had been enough to allow Harry a glimpse of the vast crevasse that existed between them, Harry cold and numb on one side, Malfoy sweaty and grasping for foothold on the other. Odd that a moment of closeness could be so alienating. In that brief cluster of minutes Harry had felt more alone that he would have felt had he been utterly by himself, so he had thrust Malfoy out into the hallway by force, leaving him with only a blanket for company.

_More than he deserved... _

Harry partially winced at the thought--mostly because it occurred to him that Malfoy was probably still out in the hallway, and that he'd had at least a good five or six hours to work himself into a frenzy over last night's events.

Pulling himself upright, Harry padded somewhat clumsily over to the bureau and fished a cigarette from his half-empty pack of stale Rothmans. He clamped the filter between his teeth but didn't light it, instead yanking open a drawer and feeling through the sea of loose change and mis-matched socks for his glasses. He wore corrective contact lenses almost seventy-five percent of the time now, but still found that he preferred glasses first thing in the morning, when his eyes were dry and itchy from the dusty air of his flat. He settled the oval wire-rims onto the bridge of his nose and left the bedroom, yanking up his boxers as he moseyed his way to the front door. Half of him hoped that Malfoy would have crept away quietly in the night, tail between his legs, but the other half rallied for him to have stayed put; if he _was _gone, that would only mean that Harry would have to spend all afternoon looking for him, making sure he wasn't dead and stuffed into a rubbish bin somewhere.

Harry took a deep breath of resolve and pulled open the door. Malfoy was sprawled out in front of it, his tee-shirt twisted around his torso, the blanket tangled up in the cockeyed splay of his legs. If it weren't for the way his lips were puffed out with thick, raspy snores, he might have looked very well like a dead body lying there. Someone, an overly considerate stranger, had tucked a ten pound-note into the waistband of Malfoy's pyjama trousers. Harry hastily snatched it up, figuring that after last night, Malfoy was liable to read a little too deeply into the placement of _anything _near the vicinity of his lap region--even if it was something as useful as money.

Harry toed his bare foot into Malfoy's side until he grunted once and then sat up straight, blinking at Harry as if he were a distant mirage. Malfoy's hair stuck up from the crown of his head like wild chicken feathers, a sight which caused Harry to self-consciously reach up and pat his own hair into place.

"I'm dreaming," Malfoy said, his voice clear and alert, but his eyes glazed over and looked at Harry without really _seeing_ him.

"Don't I wish," Harry said, removing the cigarette from his lips and tucking it behind his ear. With those words he felt his first genuine pang of pity for Malfoy. He was desperate, he was a lousy shit, but he was also knee-deep in a waking nightmare. If only his nightmare would stop washing over into Harry's own....

"Is it morning then?" Malfoy balled his hands into fists and wiped at his eyes, looking quite like a very small child who had just been drowsed out of a nap.

"Nearly afternoon."

Malfoy lowered his hands and blinked repeatedly, suddenly aware of the fact that he was sitting on the grimy floor just outside Harry's flat. "You kicked me out," he said, his lower lip curling over in a way that closely resembled a pout.

"I'll make coffee," Harry muttered. He pulled the door wide open in a welcoming way, then turned his back on Malfoy and walked towards the kitchen area, his stomach in knots as he did so.

It was no good. But he had nothing to feel guilty about. What was he supposed to have done? Why was Malfoy the only person in the world who didn't know when to shut his mouth? He wasn't sorry.

"You like coffee, I hope?" Harry instinctively cringed at the earnest tone of his voice.

"Only if you've lots of milk and sugar." Malfoy had wandered back into the flat, the blanket still drawn around his shoulders.

"Plenty." Harry removed a small box of sugar cubes from a drawer; yet another difference between them--Harry took his coffee strong and inky black, the more bitter the better. It didn't take long for the coffee to brew, and Harry kept his back to Malfoy while it finished up, his glasses fogging over from the warm steam that rose up from the small, four-cup coffee-maker. He filled two chipped mugs up with the rich liquid, adding several sugar cubes and a splash of milk to one of them.

"Here." He handed the sugared coffee over to Malfoy, who was sitting at a chair that had been pulled up to the rickety tea table.

"Thanks," Draco said. As he reached for the mug the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders slid partway to the floor. Along with it, Harry glimpsed something fall to the ground.

Not saying a word, Harry put his own mug on the tea table and bent over, plucking up the object that had fallen by Malfoy's foot. It was a bright red feather. He held it up to the light, noticing that the vein of the feather was pure gold, and that the barbules were tipped in the same colour.

"This came from a Phoenix," he finally said, laying it on the table.

"Where'd you get it?" Draco asked, concentrating on his steaming drink.

"From you. It fell from your blanket just now." Harry used a fingertip to slide the feather towards him.

"This is _your_ blanket. It's an acrylic blend."

Harry thought Malfoy looked amazingly calm, puffing up his lips to blow on his coffee before taking a tentative sip; then again, he had no way of knowing that Phoenix feathers didn't just _show up_ in poverty-level Muggle flats. Harry remembered enough to know that only the wealthiest of wizards could afford to purchase Phoenix feathers, seeing how most of them were culled solely for wand-making.

"The feather isn't mine," Harry said, picking it up and twirling it between his fingers. "I haven't seen one of these since I last saw Fawkes."

_Fawkes. He was looking at me--eyes glassy with tears? Or were they _my_ tears? I was crying...I was--_

Harry shuddered and gulped back half of his coffee, relishing the way it ripped down his throat and brought a flood of sharp, comforting pain into his sinuses.

"Fawkes?" Draco stopped fiddling with his own coffee and finally looked closely at the feather. "Hey. Somae has one of those."

"Somae? Who's that?"

"My _fiancée_. Remember?" He narrowed his eyes, saying the word 'fiancée' as if it implied something unpleasant, like 'my executioner', or 'my accountant'. It occurred to Harry that Malfoy might finally be remembering last night's discussion of his fiancée, and the sticky conclusion it had inevitably led to. Harry closed his eyes tight and slugged back the rest of his coffee, urging his mind to cook up a rational explanation for what had happened. Malfoy was bound to let loose his accusations any minute now...

"She was wearing hers when they tossed me out of Azkaban...pinned up in her hair." Draco fingered the feather, his expression an odd mixture of pain and nostalgia; though in Harry's experience the two emotions were never particularly far apart.

"Wait, she was there when they pulled you out of Azkaban?" Harry shook his head, a slight feeling of incredulity coming over him, tingling down to the very pads of his fingertips. "Why would they need her there to send you into exile?"

"I haven't the slightest," Malfoy said, shrugging. "At the time I thought she was in on it somehow...was right pissed off about it, too."

"Did she say anything to you?"

Malfoy looked up and a bar of sunlight fell across his face, obscuring his features. "Yeah. She said she was sorry."

Harry felt the incredulity amplify, sending the hairs on his body upright, like tiny antennae.

"But what was she sorry about?"

Malfoy appeared deep in thought, which was a strange thing to witness--mostly because it was clear that this Somae, whoever she was, was indeed someone he cared for. Harry could see this by his vaguely pained expression. It was the vagueness that struck Harry; it was as if Malfoy wasn't exactly crystal clear on his own feelings towards his fiancée. That was more than a bit odd, wasn't it?

"I don't know," Malfoy finally said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, as if he might be withholding something.

"She didn't say anything else?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very. And since when are you so curious about my life anyway, Potter?" Draco retorted, seeming more tired than genuinely annoyed. "Last night you went to all lengths to cut off conversation, as I recall."

"Because why would someone wear an expensive, rare Phoenix feather just to pay one last visit to her fiancé while he's stuck in the clink? And not even a conjugal visit, at that. Why would she be there at all? And how did this feather get tangled up in your blankets last night?" Harry tilted the feather this way and that, liking how it glowed, ember red, in the sunlight.

Wheels clicked behind Malfoy's eyes. "What are you saying?"

Harry pulled the ten-pound note from the pocket of his tee-shirt and passed it over to Malfoy. "I found that tenner on you this morning. Thought a charitable sort had left it there so you could treat yourself to a decent meal, but now I'm not so sure. Finding a tenner and a Phoenix feather on the same morning is just a bit too lucky to be believed, don't you think?"

"Wait..." Malfoy studied the feather and the money, eyes shifting from one to the other as the pieces came together. "You think _Somae _left these things for me to find?"

Harry shrugged. "It seems plausible, really. If she was there when they pulled you out of Azkaban, she would have been present to witness the implantation."

"So?"

"So the implant charm supposedly cut you off from the wizarding world, right? But if she was present for the implantation, I imagine it would be fairly easy for her to use a similar incantation and create a counter-charm to find you." Harry was growing increasingly astounded by his own words. He hadn't thought about how to create a proper charm in years, but now it was all coming back to him, the subtle variations of spell casting, the minute differences between a charm and a spell and a hex.

Even while Harry's own excitement was being stirred by this turn of events, Malfoy seemed almost dazzlingly unsurprised at the news that his fiancée could be nearby, seeking him out at this very moment. "No one told me implant charms hurt, you know," he remarked off-handedly, grimacing slightly. "Makes me rather glad I never had a chance to take the Dark Mark--an implant that strong is bound to pinch more than a bee sting."

"You..." Harry broke off, his eyes catching sight of Malfoy's bare arms. "You never took the Dark Mark. I just now noticed. . .wow, we--I--always figured you would."

Malfoy raised his chin slightly. "I would have," he said, and Harry saw something like defiance--maybe even a twisted sort of strength--flash in his eyes, making him at that moment the petulant child that had intoned judgment on Harry time and time again: _You've picked the losing side, Potter. . ._

Harry rubbed his own arm instinctively. "Why didn't you?"

"You don't just take the mark whenever you get the whim to, Potter. It's a sacred Father-Son ceremony that has been going on for over a thousand years, but occurs only once per decade, at the close of the tenth passing year." Malfoy sounded vaguely as if he were reading from an instructional pamphlet. _Dark Rituals in a Pinch_, perhaps.

"So you would've taken the mark if you hadn't been imprisoned in Azkaban. Is that what you're saying?"

"I would have done _a lot_ of stuff if I hadn't been imprisoned, like get my hair cut, for instance. Azkaban changed everything," Malfoy said, looking more and more as if he would rather be talking about something else. "Not that I expect you to understand. . .it's complicated."

Harry stared. "Try me."

Draco turned his palms up in a gesture of helplessness. "Taking the mark isn't the big deal you're making it out to be, Potter. I know you associate it with--what's the thing, that nazi swas-ta-ma-ka?--but if you're me, you just grow up knowing that someday it's going to happen, like losing your baby teeth or developing chest hair. It's just nature's course."

Harry felt his eyes widen involuntarily. After all that he'd seen, after all that he himself had done, it appeared that Malfoy still had the uncanny ability to make his jaw drop. "But it's _not_ nature's course. It's Father-Son you said, didn't you? Then it's your father's course, not nature's."

As if an internal switch had been activated, Malfoy's nonchalant tone suddenly disappeared. A patch of red burned beneath each eye and he scooted his chair out with an audible _squeak. _"Leave my father out of it," he said, his tone hard.

Harry smirked, unmoved by the suggestion of Malfoy's rising temper. "Every time I wanted to change the subject last night, you wouldn't let me--not until I took things into my own _hands_ at least. Tables are turned now, aren't they?" He didn't bother masking the flat joy in his tone, though somewhere, a tiny part of him was alarmed at how much he was beginning to take pleasure in hurting Draco Malfoy. What was this? His inner-thirteen-year-old's last attempt at revenge? Or was this who he was--what he had become these last three years away from Hogwarts--a cold, unyielding man? Perhaps that was it, and he was only fully realising it now that his memories of boyhood were finally surfacing.

Malfoy glared at him for several seconds, his expression a muted mixture of fury and desperation. "It's no good bringing him up anyway," he finally spat out. "He's dead."

Harry drew back in surprise, a million and one scenarios flashing through his head at once. Deep in the whorls of his spongy memory he recalled that Lucius had been hated and feared by many. Any number of individuals could have done him in--then again, a faulty flying carpet could have done the same. "What happened?" he asked, poking at the bridge of his glasses.

Malfoy looked at him carefully before answering, doubt swimming in his eyes. "Someone murdered him," he said, voice curiously flat for someone describing the death of a loved one. "Though I suppose someone like you would call it justice."

The lingering coffee aftertaste seemed to suddenly burn at the back of Harry's throat. "I'm sorry," he said simply, not sure where to look except for at Malfoy himself. He didn't know if he really _was_ sorry, though. In their far and few between meetings—a number of which he foggily suspected as having involved bodily harm—Lucius Malofy had not struck Harry as Father of the Year, and having just learned of this "nature's course" way of the Death Eaters, Harry wondered if Malfoy wasn't in the long run better off without his father's influence.

But Harry himself had not been better off without a father's influence. Not at all. Funny, he could scarcely remember what his father had looked like in those few photographs he had possessed; even when he shaved in front of the mirror, somehow intuitively aware that he resembled that young man that had married Lily Evans, the specific details of his father's face were now refusing to work themselves up from the coils of his unconscious. He knew they looked alike, but he no longer knew _how._

"How did it happen?" he asked, wondering if he'd get an actual answer. 

He was right to wonder. Malfoy did not speak, but instead rolled his eyes from side to side, as if suddenly realising that the room was a cage, and his fists tightened around the rim of the table: grimy nails digging at polished wood. There was something in that posture that gave Harry pause. Malfoy had been so cocky the night before, so very much the demanding, spoilt self that Harry remembered--so much so that he bore little resemblance to anyone who had spent a good amount of time in the hive of Dementors known as Azkaban. But that was different now. . .that wild look in his eyes--it reminded Harry of someone. . . Sirius? Hagrid?

"Malfoy..." Harry spoke foolishly, before he could stop himself. "What did you do?"

And then it was as if a single wire snapped somewhere inside Malfoy's body, reducing him to pieces.

"Fuck you!" He shot his chair out from the table, standing up with such force that it toppled over. His voice warbled on the edge of watery tears. "Fuck you!" he repeated, his mouth still working convulsively though no more words came out. He stormed for the door, barefoot and without a jacket, the Phoenix feather still clutched in his hand.

"Stop!"

Harry's body had a hard time catching up with the word. Malfoy shot out the front door and Harry gave chase, feeling impossibly slow and clumsy; it had been a long time since the pulse of strong emotion had propelled him in any direction, and he had to fight hard to keep up.

"Malfoy..." Harry reached for his shoulder and missed; He was already pounding down the stairwell, each step like an angry canon blast. Harry stumbled and almost fell into the stairwell after him, his glasses knocked askew on his face. The noise he made grappling for the railing must have briefly penetrated Malfoy's fury, though, because he suddenly stopped at the landing and did an about-face.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, breathless, eyes uncharacteristically dark in the midst of his wan face. "Last night..." he paused, frowning. "You wanted me gone. Why help me now, then, after what's been done?"

_And after what you did..._ The accusation hung between them, unsaid.

Harry didn't know what to say. He inched down the steps instead, certain that at any moment Malfoy might bolt like a jackrabbit. A bright streamer of sunlight was coming up from the next floor down, bleaching out Draco's face to the point where it was almost hard for Harry to look at him. It struck Harry at that moment how very little he typically ventured out in daylight. Oh sure, he might trot across the street to pick up coffee or cigarettes, but for the most part he didn't truly live his life until the sun went down.

_Quit hiding up there, Potter..._

It was the first dream he had remembered in a long time. He wondered if it meant something.

The bright crimson of the Phoenix feather, still clutched--getting crushed, no doubt--in Malfoy's fist, caught Harry's eye. He reached out slowly and fingered the tuft of it; it felt magically warm, as if the _flambé _nature of the creature ws somehow still alive in the feather.

"I don't know," he said.

It wasn't much of an answer, but it seemed to be more than Malfoy was expecting. The constricted look on his face relaxed by a few degrees, and he adjusted his grip so that the feather was pinched just lightly between the tips of his fingers, slowly passing it over to Harry.

"If it is Somae's, why did she leave it here? Why didn't she just wake me up and take me back home?" His voice was filled with disbelief rather than hurt, but Harry suspected that hurt was brewing in him somewhere. If Draco could love someone--and it appeared that he could; his father, at least, and this fiancée, whoever she was--then he could be hurt. That was the way the world worked: love opened you up to all sorts of unpleasantries, whether it be the age-old gonorrhea or other, less visible disease.

"Maybe she didn't leave it here," Harry suggested, his tone careful. "Someone else could have left it here, hoping you would think it was from her."

"Oh." Malfoys's face twisted into a snarl--his version of looking crestfallen, Harry supposed.

"But it doesn't matter," Harry added hurriedly. "Either way, it's a sign that somebody is looking for you.

Malfoy shrugged. "They obviously found me. So what now?"

"We find them. We find them first."

It must have been the word _We_. Whatever it was, Malfoy was now gazing at Harry in shock, clearly halfway to admiration, though he was trying to fight it by deepening his scowl. Harry ignored it and turned to climb up the stairs, fairly certain that Malfoy would follow.

"Potter..."

Harry paused at the top of the stairwell. "Malfoy?" he mimicked.

"_I_ get to carry the feather."

***

"Not to be rude, but one of you--possibly _both_ of you--has a rather severe case of bad breath."

"I do believe we have Mr. Weasley's meal to thank for that."

"Is that your way of admitting that you're the one with the rot-mouth, Snape?"

"Hardly."

"Are you sure it's not you, Ron? I always have to remind you to brush your teeth..."

"Oh Christ. Why do I always get the feeling that if you weren't a witch, you'd be a dentist?"

"Quit talking into my ear like that, Ron. Every time you move your mouth stubble chafes the side of my face. And besides, what's wrong with being a dentist?"

The downstairs had been put back in order, with the exception of Brewster's body, which now lay draped with Harry's old invisibility cloak--given to Ron on the day that he had left Hogwarts. The three were now sitting side by side, lined up like sardines on a small sofa that faced the upstairs fireplace, patiently waiting for Dumbledore to appear in the fire. A cheerful house elf had answered their call, jotting off at once to fetch the Headmaster, but several minutes had already passed, leaving the three cramped and sweaty in the tight confines of their seat.

"What if he's died?" Ron suddenly intoned, poking an elbow into Hermione's ribs for emphasis.

"What, just now?"

"Yes! It would be very. . .whatsitcalled...dramatic irony?"

"Incorrect. Dramatic irony is when readers or an audience know something important that the characters do not. I believe that the word you're grappling for is _bad timing."_

"That's two words, Snape. I'm just saying."

"I can count, Miss Granger."

"And I'm still alive, Severus. Though I thank you for your concern."

Dumbledore's well-worn face had finally appeared in the fire, smiling genially in that way that tended to mask any semblance of genuine emotion. It had always been a comfort to Hermione when she was younger; to see that smile meant that everything would be all right, despite the terrible odds. Now that she was older, though, she found it vaguely irritating. It made her feel terribly human by comparison, merciless to the pull and tug of her own unpredictable moods.

"Hello Headmaster," Snape said curtly, voice more brittle than styrofoam.

"Yes, Hello Headmaster," Hermione repeated, feeling like a parrot.

"Hi," said Ron.

There was a long pause.

"It was you who called me, children," Dumbledore gently reminded.

Hermione could actually _feel _Snape bristle at the word "children".

"Miss Granger has something to tell you, Sir," he said, his voice strained.

"Is that right, Hermione?" Dumbledore squinted in her direction. "Go ahead then, child."

"Something happened last night, Sir," she began. "Well, this morning, really...there was a break-in, you see, and a man--though he seemed inhuman at the time--he...well, he went after Andy..."

"Goodness!" Dumbledore looked properly horrified.

"I killed him," she finished.

There was silence. The Headmaster rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then finally shifted his eyes towards Snape. "Severus?" he asked.

Snape spoke at once, as if somehow intuitively aware of what Dumbledore wanted to hear. "It's true he did not appear human; no spells had any effect on the man at all. Miss Granger shot the man in a moment of desperation. Unfortunately, we now know that the man was a Ministry employee. Arlan Brewster, to be exact."

"The Azkaban guard?"

The three nodded simultaneously.

"Ah, well, so it's come to this, has it?"

This time, only Snape nodded.

"Come to what?" Ron blurted out, not bothering to mask his confusion. Hermione leaned dumbly against him, equally confused.

"The latest Dementor activity has been cause for concern amongst those of us who have been in the know. Their recent migrations from the prison suggest that they've stopped toying with the Ministry and have officially joined with Voldemort, certainly in exchange for a share of his power."

"What kind of power?" Hermione asked, feeling her throat dry up ever-so slightly.

"More power over humans, I imagine. Humans are, in fact, what the Dementors feed on. Spiritually speaking. But they rarely get the sort of full access to us that they desire."

"Meaning they don't get to make-out with us nearly so often as they'd fancy," Ron scoffed, though Hermione could feel a shudder run through him.

"In a manner of speaking, Mister Weasley," Dumbledore said, looking as if he were struggling to contain his amusement.

"What the Headmaster says confirms our suspicions," Snape said, his tone an acidic reminder of the severity of their situation. "The Dark Lord has amplified the Dementors' powers so that they can now somehow 'infect' humans. The Arlan Brewster we saw last night was not really Brewster, but a Dementor's puppet, the Dementor itself being a puppet of Voldemort's."

Hermione caught her breath. "Does that mean..."

"He was as good as dead, my dear," Dumbledore said gently, his face very grave.

Hermione waited for relief to wash over her, but got little more than the faintest spray. Accident or not, a man was dead who shouldn't have been, in part because of her. She nodded numbly only because she knew that Ron and Snape were waiting for her to do so.

"The Ministry will no doubt be sending Aurors here before nightfall. Even if they are aware of the Dementor's new allegiance with Voldemort, they'll be looking for someone to blame for Brewster's death."

"That's right," Hermione chimed in, noting that it felt decidedly weird to be Snape's partner in giving Dumbledore the scoop. "Both the flat and the agency are under the names of Richard and Helen, so it's possible that they may find Brewster's body and dismiss him as the victim of a muggle crime. But if they _do_ know about the Dementors, then they're bound to investigate further and find out what Ron and I have been doing here."

"Hmm, yes," Dumbledore murmured, concern deepening the wrinkles in his face. "Are Bill and Fleur still living near Dover, Ron?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps it would be best if you three lay low there for the time being? Just until we know how the Ministry classifies Brewster's death..."

"That would be fine," Ron said, though his tone was somewhat morose. To everyone's great surprise, Bill and Fleur had followed in the Weasley's footsteps and already had three very small children, with a fourth on the way.

"I'm afraid there's not much more that can be done for you three at this point," Dumbledore said apologetically. "But do keep a close eye on that cauldron of yours, Hermione. It appears that Voldemort has taken a rather dangerous interest in it."

Hermione nodded agreeably, though the idea of Voldemort poking around in Andy left her physically ill. Andy was more or less an open window into all the Ministry's intelligence, and would leave Voldemort free to plunder into heaps of top-secret information, guaranteeing he would always be one step ahead of the good guys—if the Ministry could ever be called 'good'. Not that Voldemort wasn't one or more steps ahead right now--no one even knew where he was, after all.

After bidding farewell to the Headmaster, Hermione and Ron retreated to their bedrooms to pack, leaving Snape alone in the living room where he had slept the night before. Hermione took a longer time than usual getting dressed, even though she knew she should be hurrying, stuffing garments into a duffle bag at random--as Ron himself was no doubt doing. Staring into her wardrobe, Hermione realized that she had a great wad of clothing that did not belong to her: sailor suits, vampy club clothes, skin-tight leather miniskirts. . .it was like a little girl's dress up trunk, lacking only in a fake tiara (though she had a feeling there might be one under the bed). Somewhere deep in the back of the wardrobe were her real clothes: sensible skirts and jumpers, most of them many years old and now too tight to wear comfortably. Rummaging, she managed to fetch a pair of worn corduroy trousers off a bent hanger and held them out before her, considering.

She couldn't quite bring herself to pull them on, though, and instead folded them neatly into her bag, quickly heaping an armful of brightly coloured dresses over them. She then cleared off her bureau of assorted odds and ends until only one thing remained: the Ladysmith pistol, somehow looking more dainty and innocuous than she remembered. Picking it up told a different story, however; it had heft to it, enough weight to remind her that it was chock-full of bullets--minus two now. She secured the safety and contemplated throwing it out the window, though with her luck it was bound to hit some pedestrian who would later die of a massive, gun-shaped head wound.

By the time she finally dragged her bag into the living room, Snape had long tidied up his few possessions and was laying back in the sofa with his eyes closed, looking like a man who hadn't slept in over twenty-four hours--which, she realized, was probably the case. She dropped her bag with a thump on the hardwood floor; they could catch up on shut-eye later.

Snape sat up with a start, his expression of annoyance slowly transforming into curiosity when she stomped across the room and snatched her blonde wig off the pink, goose-neck lamp. Wadding it up in her hands, she zipped around the corner into the bathroom and, without ceremony, dropped it into the toilet bowl and flushed.

The blonde hair, now wet and resembling a drowned animal, swirled round and round in the water, finally catching at the mouth of the bowl where it stuck and refused to enter the pipes any further. Hermione reached around and turned the faucet at the back of the toilet, squelching the fast-rising water before it could overflow onto the tiles.

"So long, pussycat," she muttered, letting the toilet seat fall with a bang. She felt slightly refreshed, as if she had just flushed away a part of her that had turned festering and raw overnight. And it was easier to part with than the gun, which was once again strapped in a holster around her thigh, safely hidden under the silky fall of a short kimono dress that, when paired with the black bobbed wig she was wearing, made her resemble a cocktail waitress straight out of Chinatown.

"You've destroyed the plumbing, you know," Snape drawled from behind her. He was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest.

"We won't be here to use it anyway," Hermione countered, self-consciously arranging the folds of her dress. She felt as if she were fast-developing a case of claustrophobia; it was odd to be in a small room alone with Snape, all while bright overhead lights revealed the distressingly deep crease in his forehead as he pinned her with one of his more brutal glares.

"Is flushing that silly hair your attempt at penance?"

She couldn't be sure, but she thought there was a hint--just the barest _smidge_--of amusement in his voice. Unfortunately, his amusement was anything but contagious.

"Did you kill Mudbloods?" she asked in a rush, catching even herself off guard. It felt as if her heart were trying to shimmy up her throat. "Did you rape them? Put _Crucio_ on them and force them to do your bidding? Because I saw the look on your face when I shot Brewster, and I wouldn't exactly call it shock."

Snape studied her without blinking, reminding her oddly of a lizard--or a snake, maybe. He was Slytherin, after all.

"I did not kill any Mudbloods," he said. "I did murder a wizarding couple. Supporters of the first Muggle Protection Act as established in 1978 by Millicent Bagnold, the Minister of Magic at the time."

He paused and the small room was filled with the sound of their shallow breathing.

"Who were they?" Hermione asked, voice barely higher than a whisper.

"Edgar and Ulla Bones."

"Susan Bones's grandparents?" Even before he nodded, Hermione knew that it could only be them; the highly memorialized grandparents of a slight Hufflepuff girl who had been born after their deaths, who must have read about the tragedy in scrapbook cuttings from the _Daily Prophet_.

"Edgar Bones was in the Order. . .and Susan, she was your student. . .how could you look at her day after day--criticizing her potions, no doubt--after. . .you really killed them?

"I was responsible for their murders," he said carefully. "Which isn't technically the same as killing them, in this case."

Hermione stepped back, bumping her tailbone up against the ledge of the sink. She was growing more and more disturbed by the distinct lack of emotion on Snape's face; certainly, he wasn't the type of man to drop to his knees and wail while engaged in confession, but he was so blank. . . almost _forcefully _so.

_Not that being forcefully blank makes any sense; then again, nothing makes sense at this point, does it?_

He continued without being asked to do so, though she suspected he was providing her with a minimum of details--perhaps for her sake rather than his own. "It was December of 1980, and I had been freshly marked as a Death Eater, eager to prove myself as capable and willing. When I was asked to threaten an older wizarding couple into withdrawing from the campaign to increase protection for Muggles, I jumped at the opportunity.  I knew nothing of the Order then--nobody did—not that such knowledge could have dissuaded me on that evening. Only minutes after I arrived at the Bones' house, I had them writhing in the grips of _Crucio_. Over-zealous and high on power, I concentrated the curse upon them for far too long. By the time I came to my senses, they were in a state that would assure a life-long confinement to Saint Mungos."

"But they died, instead?"

"Not just then," he said quietly. "Only the most powerful and trusted of Death Eaters were able to perform unforgivable curses, as it took a generous dose of Voldemort's magic to ensure that they themselves weren't caught and thrown in Azkaban for all the Unforgivables they had cast during the Dark Lord's height of power. I had not yet earned such protection. After twenty years of allegiance to the Death Eaters, my father, however, had. He followed and witnessed my foolish activities, then, realizing what I had done, stepped in and finished the Bones couple off. It was an act of mercy, at that point, and very likely rescued me from a deserved life sentence in Azkaban."

"Your own father?" Hermione failed to hold in her gasp.

"The Father-Son relationships of Death Eaters have a long history of strain--it comes naturally with the burden of passing on such grim family business. But now you see that while I did not kill the Bones, it was still I who insured their deaths."

In a dim part of her brain, Hermione was protesting. Yes, they both had to accept responsibility for the crimes they had committed, but there was another figure working magic in the background--and not the happy, Disney kind of magic, either. It was Voldemort, as always, bringing out the worst even in good people.

_Snape, good? _

True, she had stood up for him time and again, back when she believed that a teacher could never do wrong. And when he was revealed as a double agent she had been somewhat gratified to discover once and for all that he was one of "theirs". . .but still, the undeniable fact that he _had_ been a Death Eater, and of his own volition, had never sat right with her. Because the Death Eaters hated her kind; to them she was the infestation running through their blood--like the AIDS of the wizarding world.

It made her wonder why he had told her his story in the first place. To let her glimpse his jealously guarded past? To make her feel better about having killed a man?

Then again, she was the one who asked him if he had ever killed anyone. Not too bright, that.

And she was about to ask another string of questions she might regret--did he hate Muggles? was he was repulsed by her?--but Ron chose at that moment to thunder his way into the bathroom; she didn't know whether to kiss him or kick him for his decidedly poor timing.

"What are you two doing, hanging out over the toilet? It's time to check out, mates." He did an about-face and thundered back out; several rooms away, Hermione could hear him rummage through a closet, no doubt double-checking that he hadn't left any important Quidditch memorabilia behind.

"Do you. . ." she began, then stopped and swallowed, unable to finish the question.

He looked at her with something like mild concern, then reached out and touched her wrist, just lightly, on the fleshy underside where her watch-band had left reddish indentations.

"I know we had an agreement in which I would be the one to wear this remarkable apparatus," he said, tapping the watch-face twice. "But I think it would be best if you keep him near you for the time being. I wouldn't want to come between you." He almost smiled then, but got stuck somewhere on 'very sardonic grimace'.

The problem was that he had already come between them: between herself and Ron; between her desire to foil Voldemort's plans and track down Harry once and for all; and, more immediately, between a chilly washbasin and the bathroom door. It was a small distance, but it was enough to make a difference.

*******************************************

Some credits:

First line to Johnny Cash, of course. The wig-flushing scene is inspired by something similar in _Valley of the Dolls_, including the line "So long, Pussycat." 

Thanks to Susanna and Franzi for their swift yet thorough betas. And thanks to all of _you_ for reading along this far. See you post-OotP. :D


	10. Chapter Nine: Flight of the Fallen

**Faster, Mudblood! Kill! Kill! **

**Chapter Nine:  Flight of the Fallen**

No matter how exotic the establishment, almost all bars and clubs seem seedy in the middle of the afternoon.  They were also, Harry realised, a bit depressing.  Something about the way the thick curtains fell over the windows created a fortress against any and all natural light, rendering the atmosphere stuffy and dim, a false sort of night life that failed to live up to the real thing.  Mostly because, at the moment, the Pink Bishop was almost entirely empty.  It was four-thirty and the club had just opened, empty of customers but for Lars, who sat down at the far end of the bar with his little shih-tzu , Pepper, in his lap, slowly nursing an amaretto sour.  The traffic came muffled through the heavily draped windows, more like a memory of traffic, and the air was already laced with peppery cigarette smoke, thanks to the Sobranies that Lars kept lighting up, one after another.

Harry was counting out the cash drawer, trying to calculate how much he could afford to borrow from the weekly deposit.  Earlier, he had asked Varda if she could manage to hold things down for a week or so; if she could, _please, _give up her Poke-a-hot-assact in exchange for boring managerial duties as a personal favour to Big H.  Her eyes had narrowed at the suggestion of having to do menial work for a week; despite being part owner in this enterprise, Varda did not like to be associated with the day-in, day-out tasks of maintaining a successful business, like checking to see that the toilet stalls were clean and stocked with paper, as well as making sure that the drug dealers kept their business confined to that same general area.  And while she was always the consummate hostess, having memorised the names of almost all the regulars, she far preferred being perceived as the star of the stage show.  

"Where do you need to go for a week?" She raised a severely penciled-in eyebrow.  "You haven't taken a night off since we opened the doors over a year ago."

"So I'm due one then, don't you agree?" Harry had asked.  The club was still closed at this point, and he was busy restocking the liquor as they conversed, bottles and canisters clinking as he worked. 

"Sure doll," she said, dumping a container of lime slices into the garnish caddy.  "It's just not like you to…" She stopped, absently fingering a lime.  "Wait a minute..." Her face lit up, quite suddenly.  "It's that blond gutter-rat, isn't it?  You took him home and want to spend a week alone with your new pet!  Why you dirty--"

"Erm, no," Harry had said hurriedly, so startled that he accidentally clanged two bottles of bombay gin together, nearly breaking them.  

"But he's still at your flat, innit he?" She asked, grinning in a knowing way.  

"Yes.  He's recuperating." 

"Recuperating from _what?  You?"  She pelted him with a cocktail onion, which bounced wetly off his shoulder.  _

Harry sighed and considered how exactly he could explain his current situation without opening Varda up to the terrible truth:  _Remember when you met me on the streets three years ago, and you thought that I was a runaway like you?  And that hustler Brody Dingle gave us lavender-grade LSD and we jumped naked in the __Thames_ and you laughed when I insisted there was a giant squid sleeping at the bottom?  Well that wasn't just the acid talking, Varda—it was a very confused, amnesiac seventeen year old wizard.  How's that for a giggle?__

"Okay, you've got it spot-on.  The blond gutter-rat and I are running away to Brighton for the week.  Fun in the sun, if you know what I mean," Harry finally said, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated way.  It might be better to let Varda keep her original impression of the situation, if anything to keep her from jumping in with another barrage of questions.  Abstaining from the business of others wasn't exactly her forte.  

"Brilliant!" She had looked quite pleased at having made the correct assumption.  "And that poor boy could use a little sun—though I'm sure you'll make certain that his flesh is adequately drenched in sunscreen."  She grinned and Harry struggled to return a smile.  He tried to imagine how Malfoy would respond to something like sunscreen: _What is this? It stinks.  It looks like…well, I won't say, but I'd much rather have burnt skin.  A simple shading charm and you wouldn't need this gook anyway._

Varda had then leaned against the bar, fiddling with the clasp of her turquoise spangled belt, which just happened to match the earrings, necklace, and bracelets that dripped from all points of her body.  Harry slowly shifted around the vodka bottles, feeling her eyes on him.  

"What?" he finally said, turning. 

"Nothing."  She smiled mistily.  "Just a little jealous is all."  She reached out and touched the side of his face, seeming to blanch a little at how stubbled it was.  "No one's ever been able to reach you—though we've all had our share of trying.  And now here you are, taking a boy to the seaside on holiday."  She finished with a sniffle.

"Gee, Varda, you don't…" He shifted on his feet, grappling for words. 

"Oh, quit being such a stone fox," she said, voice flaring in annoyance.  "Take a compliment like everyone else for once!"  

She had startled him with her outburst; so much so that he nearly dropped the bottle of Grey Goose he was shelving.  For just a scant second, he had been strongly reminded of Hermione—her fine balance of kindness and impatience, a set of scales that could fluctuate with the slightest joggle.  But Varda and Hermione were otherwise nothing alike: Hermione wouldn't be caught dead in such a low-cut blouse, for instance.  Not to mention that Hermione was a witch by practise, rather than mere reputation.  

Something in his expression must have betrayed his troubled thoughts, because her temper was doused at once, soon replaced with rare concern.  "What is it?  What's wrong?"

"Nothing."  He reached out and placed his free hand on her shoulder, squeezing it lightly.  The light in her eyes suggested she was moved by the gesture; he knew he wasn't known for displays of affection, he rarely touched anyone and typically pulled away—though he tried _not to, he really did—when others touched him.   "I wouldn't have made it these last few years without you," he said quietly.  "I just wanted you to know that."_

She had lunged forward then, peppering his cheek with kisses.  "You're doing this just so I'll agree to let you escape for a week, aren't you?" she exclaimed, punching him in the side.  "Fine then.  You're free!  But I expect a souvenir... several of them, in fact.  And don't forget that my best colours are aqua and peach—preferably together."

She fled out the door soon after, claiming that she was late for an appointment with her psychic.  Harry thought that had she been a witch, she probably would have been keen on divination, though just as impatient with Trelawney as the rest of them.  

_Trelawney__!  That was her name…and she had those huge spectacles.  We always thought she looked like an insect. . ._

Harry shook his head, palming over one hundred pounds from the deposit bag and slamming the register shut.  Memories were beginning to crop up faster than mushrooms after a rainy season —some of them insignificant, others profound—and they were making it that much more difficult to concentrate on the present.  Part of him just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, if only to dream his past back to him, but he knew that lingering beyond the more mundane memories was something big: whatever it was that had caused him to retreat from his memories in the first place.  He wasn't sure he was ready to encounter that.  He wasn't sure he would _ever be ready.  _

"Mojito?"

Harry looked up in surprise.  A customer had just settled down on the barstool across from the register—a man in a rather ordinary business suit, a pair of very dark shades covering his eyes—and was so quiet that Harry hadn't even heard him enter the club.  

"Oh, I'm sorry."  Harry quickly took stock of the garnish caddy.  "We don't have any fresh mint.  Can I get you something else?"

"Malacca and tonic.  Extra limes."  

Harry nodded and went to the business of preparing the drink.  He went heavy on the gin  and rather clumsily squeezed three limes slices into the glass; the first shift bartender, Gene, didn't arrive until five, and Harry was really only so-so at the art of mixing cocktails.  The customer didn't seem to mind, though; he knocked back the gin as if it were water, then slid forth his empty glass and requested another.  The second drink he sipped leisurely, appearing deep in thought—though it was hard to tell, given that his sunglasses seemed to render him completely expressionless.  Harry shrugged slightly and went back to the liquor stock, noting that the opening strains of "The Girl from Ipanema" were coming from the stage area.  The Monday afternoon singer appeared to be launching into her shaky set of recycled lounge tunes.  She wasn't terribly good, to tell the truth, but Varda had an unfortunate soft spot when it came to hiring aspiring talent.   

"So tell me about the bird."  The gin-drinking customer suddenly said, tapping his fingers on the slick counter to get Harry's attention.

"Oh, the singer?" Harry raised his eyebrows quizzically.  "Her name is…um…Venus?  Star?  Something sort of celestial, but I'm not sure I have it just right."

The man laughed; a low, rough laugh that made Harry wonder if this wasn't the fifth or sixth bar that he had stopped at this afternoon.  "Not that bird," the man said.

"Um?" Harry felt a strange sort of helplessness pass over him.  With any other customer, he would have simply said: _If you want to know about birds, I suggest you get yourself a field guide.  _The stoic presence he had innately perfected over the years seemed to have abandoned him completely, though, and he felt quite awkward, quite like…he had as a boy.  

"The _other bird, Harry.  You know the one. . .big, red, and bursts into flames?"  The man leaned over when he spoke, as if they were sharing an intimate secret.  _

"What, a Phoenix?" Harry asked dimly.  Then everything suddenly became much clearer—the ground beneath him evened out; the air became much sharper, suddenly pungent with the smell of lime juice and liquor.  The boyish awkwardness disappeared.  "Who are you?" he asked, phrasing it as a demand, not a question.  

The man grinned expectantly.  "No one, mate.  Just a passing stranger…a drifting dust mote, no more remarkable than a fart in the wind."

Harry refused to let his expression betray the paranoia that was beginning to simmer within him.  "I think I know you."  

The man laughed and pretended to wipe non-existent sweat beads from his forehead.  "Okay, you got me.  You and I go way back, Harry.  We were close, once upon a time."

Harry frowned, straining to see what he could of the man beyond those black shades.  He had ordinary brownish hair and appeared to be anywhere from age thirty to forty.  Looking at him caused Harry no sense of alarm, but he wasn't exactly at ease, either.  

"You're the one who left the Phoenix feather," he finally determined.  

 The man's smile was wide, showing his crooked bottom teeth.  "Very sharp," he said, nodding his head as if impressed.  "But it's not from me.  The dame asked me to bring it."

Harry quickly surveyed the club;  Lars and the singer were still the only other people in sight, and thanks to the singer's overly-loud version of "You Light Up My Life", there was no way Lars could overhear them from his position down at the end of the bar.  "You mean Somae?" he finally asked, keeping his voice low. 

"That's right.  She wanted me to pass it along to the rich bloke.  Said he'd know what it meant.  But you know. . . I _saw that kid with my own eyes and he didn't strike me as overly clever.  So you can consider this visit additional clarification on the matter."_

Harry faced the man head-on, dropping a few cubes of ice into a glass and pouring some Dewer's over it.  "Clarification received," he said, enunciating his words carefully.  "Now if we're really old friends, why don't you tell me who you are?  Because to be honest, I can't place you."  He tipped back his head and took the scotch in one swallow.  

The man shook his head.  "Not really important anymore," he said, and something about the way his too-wide smile disappeared made it clear that the subject was no longer up for discussion. 

"Okay then."  Harry swirled the ice in his empty glass a few times.  "Tell me how you were able to find Malfoy, then.  Because the story I have says that he's banished from the wizarding world—which means you shouldn't even be able to find him."

The man's smile returned.  "Who said I'm a wizard?" 

Harry was surprised.  "You're not?" he asked, lowering his glass of ice and setting it on the counter. 

The man's smile twitched once and changed into…something vague.  A strange sort of nostalgia?  That didn't seem likely, but then those sunglasses hid so much.  "Not really," he finally answered.  "Though from what I've been told, you can relate to my predicament."  

Harry's body temperature felt as if it had dropped several degrees, the muscles in his neck paining as if he'd been grasped by the scruff of his hair.  "Who told you that?" he asked.  "Who's been talking to you about me?" 

The man chuckled.  "Don't worry, Harry!  They've said nothing but good things. . .to some people you're still a hero, after all.  Not everyone forgot about the Boy Who Lived."  He half-stood and reached across the bar, hand outstretched in a fist as if he planned to knock Harry in the face.  Harry flinched in spite of himself and the man let loose another barking laugh.  "Here," he said, opening his fist.  Two five-pound notes dropped lazily to the counter.  "Keep the change."

He pushed away from the bar and turned for the exit, stuffing his hands in his trouser pockets as he went.  Harry watched him leave, struggling with a strange urgency to flee the club and get back to his flat, back to where Malfoy was waiting.

***

The man exited into bright sunlight, a grin still lingering on his face.  Harry Potter was alive and all grown up, yes, but he had the woebegotten look of someone who knew, deep down, that he wasn't meant to have lived this long.  It was written in the premature lines at his eyes, the touch of grey at his temples that he mistakenly thought was a secret between himself and his hair dresser.  Grey hair at only two decades old: surely it was the body's way of voicing surrender.  

If Harry's body was only now giving up, then his soul must have surely retired long before.  

The man walked, parting the pedestrian crowd with quick ease.  There was a time when he would have scoffed at the idea of a soul, but that was no longer the case.  Soul, heart, essence—words were inadequate when it came to describing the internal struggle, the fire that kept a person fuelled even in the face of immeasurable odds.  And in Harry's case, in the hollow way he spoke, the way he never let his eyes touch on another person's for more than a second, as if something might emerge and yank him back to the land of the living, it was clear that the embers within him had begun to run cold.  At this thought the man let out a thin sigh.  He knew the feeling.

His pace swift and steady, the man reached his destination soon enough.  His new shoes clicked up the stairs and carried him into the train station.  Kings Cross, to be exact.  He stopped briefly near a barrier—the opening to platform nine and three-quarters, he noted with a level of muted amusement—before moving on.  He found a high perch on the stairs and watched the crowd intently, using not just his eyes to see, but reaching out. . . .reaching with his _soul, one might say.  Someone was here; someone familiar.  Already he could sense the undertones of her panic, how it ran fine on the surface of her skin, sending a wash of goose bumps over her arms and thighs.  _

He finally spotted her by the ticket booth, and he knew her at once.  She was gussied up in a red kimono print, her hair black and bobbed to her chin, but it was still her—that thin, youthful face, peering suspiciously out at passers-by as she rummaged through her bag for money.  He walked towards her, approaching from behind.  The tightening in her shoulders made him wonder if she sensed him.  He made no noise, not a sound.  But yet she must have sensed him just the same, because for no good reason she jerked upright, her bag spurting from her hands, raining papers and coins to the ground.   

The man crouched smoothly at her side, scooping up a handful of the detritus:  lint, a pot of lip gloss, a candy wrapper, a sickle, a business card.  She apologised profusely, despite having nothing to be sorry for, and they nearly bumped heads as they went about the production of cleaning up.  Her apologies turned into a broken record of thanks as he passed over the handful he'd looted up, and ceased only when she spotted the sickle in his outstretched hand.  She shut her mouth then, clearly worried that he'd ask her where she'd gotten such an unusual coin.  He smiled in a reassuring way and dropped it into her bag without saying a thing.  Relief passed over her features and she smiled awkwardly, a dimple forming in her chin as she did so.  

She thanked him again and turned back to the ticket counter, taking a few steps towards it.  He called out for her to wait.  _I think you forgot something,_ he said, taking a step after her.  

She turned, her brow arched in surprise.  She stared quizzically at the business card he had pinched between his thumb and forefinger.  _It's nothing,_ she said, shrugging.  _Just a bit of rubbish._

_Are you sure? He smiled benignly, but wiggled the card slightly, as if it were a treat that could tempt a house pet to his side.  She squinted at the card, her shoulders twitching into a nervous shrug once again.  __You might want to hang on to this, he offered helpfully, tapping his finger against the image of the chess piece that was printed in the upper left corner of the card.  Then he reached out for her hand, opening it and pressing the stiff cardboard into the centre of her palm.  _

It wasn't something he hadn't planned on doing, but he enjoyed the quizzical expression on her face just the same.  She was so close to what she was looking for, and she didn't even know it.  

He didn't see the watch until he'd already dropped her hand.  But there it was, glittering unmistakably on her wrist.  It was good that he was wearing sunglasses, then, because surprise must have surely shone in his eyes.  

_You? . . he whispered, and she stuffed the card into her bag and began to back away, murmuring polite thanks.  She swivelled around and hurried away, a blinding pattern of bright red and black.  _

He could only stand open-mouthed, still awash in surprise—a feeling foreign and unfamiliar to him.  He was here for the girl with the watch.  The girl with the cauldron.  He had been told that her name was Helen.  

He hadn't known that Helen and Hermione Granger would be one in the same.  

   ***

Despite the fact that he had insisted on being in charge, Snape had already been relegated to bench far, far away from the ticket booth.  _Stay_ Hermione had ordered, and both he and Weasley had sat down obediently, tucking their bags behind their feet.  Snape consented to the girl's request without a word, cowed by the throng of bustling train-goers.  He hadn't been to Kings Cross since he'd been a child attending Hogwarts, and he certainly didn't remember all these teeming Muggles, with their loud voices and alarmingly hairstyles.  Discreetly, Snape pretended to watch them, far preferring that to forcing conversation with Weasley, who sat nearby in stone-silence, slowly shredding a paper cup he'd been drinking coffee from.  But it was no use to avoid conversation; once he had no coffee to fill his mouth, Weasley went to work talking.

"I heard you two speaking in the bathroom before we left," he said slowly, flicking a curl of paper onto the ground.  "I saw the look on her face when she came out.  What did you say to her?"

Snape suppressed a weary sigh.  Weasley was more observant than he appeared.  "That's between the two of us," he said, quite aware that such a statement would bother Weasley.  Hermione was his partner, and he was clearly protective of her in the way that any good friend would be—almost as protective as a significant other.  He wouldn't appreciate being excluded.

Weasley leaned towards him.  "Aren't you the smug one," he said unpleasantly, dropping the remains of his cup and crushing it under his shoe.  

"I'm not," Snape said, rather smugly.  

He expected an explosion, but Weasley did nothing but breathe heavily for several seconds.  Then, finally, a deep, satisfied chuckle surfaced from his chest.  "Still petty and jealous after all these years, aren't you?" he said, a mean grin jack-knifing over his otherwise jovial features.  "Still trying like mad to prove that you're above everyone—even _me_, a stinking, Muggle-loving Weasley.  You are truly pathetic, Professor.  You really are."

Snape blinked, finding that he had no words, no barbs of response.  Worse yet, Weasley's words were resonating in his head, reverberating with enough force to almost resemble something like truth and accuracy.  "Your opinion is noted," he replied, his tone chilly, tinged with resentment.  

 "Oh I'm sure it is," Weasley laughed again.  "Just remember this: _she may think you're salvageable, but she's the only one of us who ever has."_

 Snape jumped.  Weasley took note and let out one final laugh  To his own surprise, Snape felt his temper draining away, leaving behind a rather empty sense of resignation.  He wasn't sure what had expunged his fury.  Perhaps it was the rather comical sight of Hermione over fifty metres away, having spilled out her handbag and bending over to gather up the contents.  A stranger was helping her, but as she crawled around foolishly on her hands and knees, the skirt of her flimsy dress rode up to show what she wore underneath:  a pair of black men's boxer shorts, the word _cannons emblazoned on the seat in hideous bright orange script.  _

It was strange that only a bit over twenty-four hours ago, looking at her had caused him nothing but a deep sense of embarrassment and lost pride.  Relying on a former student for refuge, for a reprieve from his suffering at the hands of Minister Fudge—it would have been deeply painful, had he not been so knee-deep in numbness at the time.  He may have left the Leaky Cauldron with her out of nothing better to do, but he was about to leave London with her because it was what he _preferred to do.  It was a narrow distinction, but enough to make him uneasy.  All those years of chasing Weasley, Granger, and Potter around the castle, hoping to catch them in their acts of wanton rule-breaking, and now he was gladly joining in, behaving as if their sad, misguided adventure could be adopted as his own.  _

_And yet she said I was salvageable.  Salvageable?  It's not much. . .it's barely anything.  But it's something.  More, perhaps, than anyone else has been willing to offer you.  But don't go getting misty-eyed, fool.  Some people salvage half-eaten food and moth-eaten clothing.  One person's treasure is another's trash…  _

Weasley went quiet and still at his side.  They sat like that, saying nothing, as Hermione trotted back towards them, uneven and coltish in her high-heeled boots, still rooting around in her bag with a look of distraction on her face.  

She led them to platform seven for the train to Dover, and both Snape and Weasley were well-behaved as they boarded the carriage, acting as if their tense exchange had never occurred.  Snape thought it unusual that Hermione failed to comment on their matching sombre attitudes, but she seemed too absorbed in a small scrap of paper to notice.  It was clutched in the fingers of her free hand, and she studied it closely, as if trying to make sense of a difficult arithmancy problem.  By the time the train had departed, the lightly-occupied carriage rocking gently to and fro, a tentative look of recognition was forming on her face.

"Look," she said suddenly, holding out the piece of paper.  Snape recognised it as the card that the strange Muggle woman—Nova something or other—had given Hermione back at Crookshanks'.  "Does this look like anything to you?"

Weasley leaned in and Snape unconsciously did the same.  Hermione was tapping her fingernail against the card, pointing at the small illustration of a chess piece.

"Uh, yes.  It looks like a bishop.  In more ways than one."  Weasley looked squeamish, his face going red enough to match his hair.  

"Well yes, but ignoring the _phallic resemblance, doesn't it look like a bishop that we've seen before?"_

Weasley shrugged.  "I don't know anyone who makes chess sets quite that obscene.  Though I should pass the design along to Fred or George.  Would be a best seller, I bet."

"No,"  Hermione sighed, verging on exasperation.  "I recognize the style.  It's just like McGonagall's giant chess set…the one that nearly got you killed at the end of our first year.  Remember?"

Snape, who had been half-listening up until now, was suddenly shot with a bolt of recognition himself.  "You refer to the transfigured chess pieces used to guard the philosopher's stone?" he asked, giving the card a closer look.  "Minerva's sense of humour was always deceptively uncouth."

 "So you agree there's a resemblance?" Hermione asked, taking a wobbly step forward as the train lurched into curve.

"A bit," Snape concurred, though he was beginning to wonder what this was all leading to.  Whatever it was, it was significant enough to colour the faces of both Ron and Hermione with a small degree of concern.  

"It's probably just coincidence," Weasley said, uneasy.

"Maybe," Hermione said, crooking an eyebrow.  She then stuffed the card back in her bag, turning away so quickly that Snape was left with the distinct impression that she wasn't telling them something.  

Concluding that whatever was on Hermione's mind would have to stew inside her before she was willing to dish, Snape sat back and stretched out his legs, looking forward to a quiet, leisurely ride.  He was relieved to see that there were only two other passengers in the carriage: what looked like two men clumped together at the end of the train, both of them facing the windows.  One of the men was wearing two hats, Snape noticed.  That seemed rather odd, but these were Muggles, and if they were like the others he'd seen in his life then they were likely quite irrational when it came to accessorising.   

Without asking, Hermione sat herself between Ron and Snape, wiggling her hips until they were forced to scoot aside, allowing her room to sit between them.  

"What are you doing?" Snape hissed.  "We have nearly the whole car to ourselves."

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured, a strange, tight smile on her face.  She kept making the same motion over and over again, reaching for her boot and then pulling away, as if she couldn't make up her mind about something.  

Now Weasley looked troubled, too.  "Say there. . .you all right, Helen?" he asked, using the name that Hermione requested they use while out and about in the Muggle world. 

"Shhh."  She laid a hand on both of them, squeezing a wrist on either side.  "I can't reach my wand."

"So…you want one of us to get it for you?" Weasley asked, his brow wrinkled in puzzlement. 

Alarmed, Snape pulled in his outstretched feet with a thump.  Weasley had no idea what Hermione was on about, but Snape had the sudden fear that he knew exactly where she was going with this.  His hand automatically went for his jacket pocket, to where his wand was safely stowed, but an unseen force propelled his hand away, as if he were reaching for the flip side of a magnet.  There was a spell here, then, keeping him from retrieving his wand.

"It seems we have unwelcome company." He gestured with a bobble of his head at the two Muggles at the other end of the car.  "If I'm right in thinking that no sane Muggle would really wear two hats," he added in a biting whisper.  Hermione merely looked in the direction of the two men, eyes darkening in confirmation.

"Hey, what's this?" Weasley suddenly asked in a loud voice.  "Why can't I touch my wand?"  He was making wild, desperate passes at his trouser pocket, and Snape might have let loose a mocking laugh had the situation not been so serious.  

"Now, now," a voice said.  It was the man in two hats, who was now approaching them with his wand outstretched, his partner lumbering not far behind.  "There will be no more wand-touching for you lot, I'm afraid."

"Who are you?" Hermione spat, still uselessly groping for her boot.  "Death Eaters or Ministry?"

"Ministry," the man said, sounding insulted.  "And in case you haven't noticed, this train is no longer going to Dover."

"I hope you don't think that we'll willingly go on holiday with a pair of Fudge lackeys such as yourselves," Weasley said, both his hands automatically curling into fists.  "What do you want with us, anyway?"

The man in two hats took another step forward, ignoring Weasley and smiling, quite unpleasantly, at Snape instead.  "You would do well not to hang about the Leaky Cauldron with your former students, Professor," he said, aiming his wand in the direction of Snape's neck.  "People are bound to talk.  Especially when you have sworn duty to our Minister, Cornelius Fudge." 

"I know the Minister's name well enough to not need reminding from you," Snape replied, clearing his throat.  "Though I was never important enough for him to memorise _mine."_

"You underestimate the importance of your role," the man said, moving close enough so that the tip of his wand was at Snape's Adam's apple. 

Snape's eyes widened in genuine surprise.  Things were happening too fast.  To Fudge he'd always been _Sevvy_—how important could he really be, then?  Important enough to send spies to check up on him at the Leaky Cauldron, apparently.  "And what might that role be?" he finally asked, admittedly curious.

"To be kept _out of the way."_

There was then a resounding silence in which Snape's mind failed to entirely compute the significance of what had just been said.  He knew he had been of no real use to Fudge as a Ministry worker, but it had never occurred to him, never, that Fudge might have taken him on as a worker in order to keep an eye on him.  In order to…keep him out of the way?  Of what, exactly?  

Before he could ask, the other man, hatless and much taller and more formidable than his friend, stepped up, his wand aimed at Hermione.  "She has a weapon," he intoned.  Up close, Snape now saw that the man had a reeling blue orb in his left eye socket—a magical implement available to only the most experienced and skilled Aurors.  Fudge, it seemed, had sent the big guns after them.  

And speaking of guns, Hermione chose at that moment to spring to her feet, whipping out her wee pistol and cocking the safety.  "You forgot to put a no-touchy spell on this," she said in a taunting way, squinting one eye, her lipstick smeared so that her mouth resembled a melting candy.  Her bravado was all for show, unfortunately.  Snape saw her squinted eye flutter, her red lip tremble, and knew that she was allowing her conscience to slip between herself and the target.  

_Ferveo__! _

Her pause allowed the larger Auror to leap forward and make his move. Hermione let out a small squeal and dropped the burning-hot pistol at once, frantically waving her blistered hand in the air for relief.  

"That's bollocks!" Weasley bellowed foolishly, lunging forward to pummel the smaller Auror with his fists.  The man was so busy pointing his wand at Snape that he was actually thrown off his feet before the larger of the two Aurors stepped forward and knocked Ron back against the windows, hard enough to cause a hairline crack to appear in the glass.

"Enough," the Auror said, brandishing his wand in a beefy fist.  "Take your seats."  He made a swishing motion and all three of them were swept to the ground, landing awkwardly atop their own neat stack of luggage.  Snape's elbow clanged against something hard and his wand jabbed him in the ribs—now something more painful than useful.

"That's right," the smaller Auror said, now favouring his side thanks to Weasley's ill-timed attack.  "We'll be at the Ministry's own station within minutes.  In the meantime, I suggest you three sit quietly."

"I want to know why you're doing this to us," Hermione piped up.  

"Because," the large Auror said, his voice low and trollish,  "you've been a bad girl."  

"I don't know what you mean," she said back, tossing her head in disgust.  It was then that Snape noticed she had one hand at her back, and that the hand was very carefully looting through the duffle bag she was leaning against.  He wondered if she was looking for another gun—whatever it was she was searching out, she had best find it quickly.  Snape didn't like the look of that big Auror's eye, which was wobbling wildly from side to side, as if expecting attack at any moment.

"Oh, I think you do," the smaller Auror said, eager to join in.  The man was younger than his partner, and his way of dancing in front of the bigger Auror in order to make himself heard gave the impression of a bouncing, desperate show-off; Snape wondered if it wasn't a weakness that could be used against him.

"Your games grow tiresome," Snape said, curling his lip in what he knew was an unattractive sneer.  "You play them so very poorly."

"You think we're playing games, Professor?" the small Auror said in an incredulous sort of way.  "You ought to know something about games.  You lot used one of those Muggle weapons to shoot a Ministry worker full of metal.  It tore up his insides.  We couldn't heal him!"  The rising, almost hysterical pitch of his voice made him seem very young, not much older than Hermione or Ron. 

"We don't know a thing about your Ministry worker," Ron said, his voice thick with hatred.  Snape was prepared to make similar protest, but he was distracted by the tug of Hermione's fingers, which had fluttered against the flat plane of his wrist, finally wrapping around and pulling at his entire hand, slowing guiding it around her hip and into the open duffle that was shored up at her back.  As she did this, Snape felt uncharacteristic perspiration bead up on his forehead.  The big Auror had his blue eye on Ron for the time being, but he could turn it on Hermione at any time.  Inch by painstaking inch, Hermione coaxed Snape's hand into the duffle, finally crooking his fingers around something hard and metallic, squeezing his knuckles in a way that he took to mean _don't move.  _So he didn't, his fingers clinging to the strange object.  Was it a weapon of some kind?  Another gun?

Then the object let out a slight shudder, and he knew at once what it was he was touching.  

"Lies," the big Auror said to Ron, smiling to show his brackish-brown teeth.  "We came to your little Muggle-style flat to sort out the AWOL Professor, but were surprised by the sight of a dead body, instead."  He tapped his wand against his rotating blue eye.  "Nice try there, covering Brewster with an invisibility cloak.  It almost worked."

"How did you know we were off to Dover?" Snape asked loudly.  If Hermione was doing what he _thought_ she was doing, then he needed to keep the big Auror from looking at either her or Ron for the next few seconds.  Snape had no idea what the Auror's eye could and could not see through, but he certainly didn't wield it with the adept, hawk-like skill that Moody had possessed.  If Snape could hold his attention, they should be fine.  Just fine.  "And how do you know that it was even one of us who shot your friend Brewster?"

"I didn't know, not until we scanned your fireplace," the Auror said, both his brown eye and blue eye fixed on Snape's own.  "With our own ears we heard the girl confess to that barmy old Dumbledore, we did.  And then we heard him suggest that you three scoot off to Dover, post haste.  It was easy enough to track you down from there." 

"If you heard her confession, then you know that it was Brewster who attacked first," Snape said, carefully pacing his words.  He could feel Hermione shift at his side, and knew that she was now guiding Weasley's hands into the duffle bag.  "Moreover," he added, his voice thin and dry, "unless your ears were entirely plugged up with wax, you should have also heard how He-Who-Mustn't-Be-Named has, as we have always feared, taken control of your Azkaban Dementors, and that he has now harnessed their power in order to manipulate the Ministry itself."

The Auror rolled both of his eyes.  "All problems within the Ministry will be handled by the Minister and his staff.  It is not our job to…" he paused, now turning his gaze back to Hermione, "…seriously consider the deranged rantings of a murderous ex-Ministry-employee."

"Funny, as you appear to have considered my 'confession' with a great deal of seriousness.  Otherwise we wouldn't be here, would we?" Hermione asked, her hand bumping against Snape's as if to make certain that he still had his fingers in place, double checking to see if they were still curled tightly around the cool rim of Andy's cauldron.  She then gave the back of his knuckles a tentative pat, as if to say _all systems go._

"We're here precisely because. . ." the Auror trailed off, his blue eye suddenly snapping to attention, zeroing in on Hermione's shuffling movements. 

"What is it, Mort?" the smaller Auror asked, shifting nervously.  

"You, girl, what are you doing there?" The big Auror took a lumbering step forward, flicking his wand in irritation.  It was a pity that his body did not move as swiftly as his magical eye. 

"Andy, go!" Hermione commanded.  There was a thick, familiar tug at Snape's midsection, and the dingy floor of the train seemed to lose mass and substance as either it or he began to pull away, the clamour of chittering rails fading from his ears and replaced by a hollow ringing until the only thing he could hear was Hermione's voice, muttering _hold on hold on hold on. . . ._

***

Draco was on his back in Potter's tiny bathtub, his legs bent at an angle and feet splayed out against the tiled wall; every time he moved warm water sluiced over his stomach, sending the bar of soap he'd sat there bobbing to and fro.  Draco wasn't typically a fan of long baths, but some time around early afternoon an icy rain had started to fall outside, and Potter's flat had become chilly and draughty.  Uncertain as to how muggles heated their dwellings, Draco had immersed himself in hot water instead, taking along one of Potter's battered spy novels, Dash Dawson and the Dirty Angel.  

_"You shouldn't have come for me, Dawson."  Conners stepped out from the shadows, his sawed-off shotgun extending out before him.  _

_Dawson__ tossed his cigarette butt into a puddle of gleaming engine oil and let out a harsh laugh.  "I had to come, Conners.  I'm still the law, remember?"_

_Conners__ laughed in return.  "Sure.  But you work so far outside the law you're as filthy as me by now, __Dawson__."  He took a step out into a clear column of moonlight.  "Dirty wings, my friend.  Dirty wings."_

Draco turned the page, his wet fingers wrinkling the paper.  He found it odd that the hero and villain constantly referred to one another by their last names, as if always on the verge of forgetting who they were talking to.  

_"Let's not forget who got dirty first, Conners."  __Dawson__ pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.  "And I'm taking you in this time.  That's a promise." _

_Conners__ chuckled, his features sharply illuminated.  "Not alive, you're not."_

_"If that's how you want it, Conners…"  Dawson slung his pistol from its holster, releasing the safety.  At that sharp, metallic noise a number of pigeons burst from the fire escape overhead.  The heads of both men jerked upward at the sound, and _Dawson___ shook himself away from the sight just in time to see Conners take another step forward, his eyes narrowed, trigger finger tightening…_

_BANG!_

_Gunsmoke__ filled the air and Conners slumped to the ground, clutching his bleeding chest.  _

_"Conners!…" __Dawson__ dropped the handcuffs with a clatter.  _

_"Dash…I…" Conners croaked, seeming to reach out to him.  Dawson ran for him, splashing through the puddles and—_

"Malfoy!" 

Draco looked up, so startled that he dropped the book into the water.  Potter had burst into the bathroom, his face frantic and wind-burned, still buttoned up in his smart leather jacket.

"Th' fuck, Potter?"  Draco slipped clumsily around in the tub, looking for a washcloth or towel, but there were none near by.  He pulled his knees towards his chest instead, using the soggy novel to shield the rest of his nudity.  "Don't you know to knock?" 

"I did knock," Potter said, breathing hard.  "But there was only splashing."

"Did you run all the way here or something?" Draco asked, refusing to look Potter full-on and knowing perfectly well that it made him appear nervous and prudish—vulnerable, in other words.  But he figured he had the right to a little prudishness after last night, though for someone with supposed same-sex inclinations, Potter seemed remarkably oblivious to the fact that he'd waltzed in on what most people acknowledged as a private moment.  He had slung his jacket to the floor and was washing his hands vigorously under the steaming taps, unaware of Draco's discomfort.  Draco wondered briefly if nudity wasn't entirely customary in Muggle society.  It was wizards who always cloaked themselves in wafting, voluminous robes, after all.  

"Yes," Potter said gruffly, wiping his hands dry on his trousers.  Draco couldn't be sure, but he thought Potter's hands were trembling.  Before he could get a good look Potter shoved them into his pockets and turned to face him, his eyes weirdly magnified by the glasses he had taken to wearing again.  He had also shaved before heading out to his club, and his face was pale and stubble-free, rendering him much younger looking than he had been when Draco had first run into him in that back alley. 

"Is Somae cunning?" Potter blurted out, reaching up to run a hand through his already untidy hair.  

Draco was taken aback, mostly surprised that Potter had remembered Somae's name—though he supposed after the third or fourth reminder it must have finally sunk in.  "What's this about?  The Phoenix feather?"

"Yes.  A strange man came into the club just a little while ago just to tell me that it was from her…from Somae, that is."

"Well, we suspected that, didn't we?"  Draco couldn't help but smile.  He'd been feeling much better ever since they'd found the feather that morning, and also a twinge guilty that he'd ever mistrusted Somae to begin with.  It was becoming more and more apparent to him that his exile into the Muggle world must be some kind of set-up she'd initiated in order to break him out of Azkaban.  He wasn't sure why she didn't just come and fetch him already, but he supposed there could be Aurors or other Ministry toadies keeping an eye on her.

"_You_ suspected it," Potter corrected.  "I was more inclined to believe that we—you—were being set up for a fall."

"You sure you haven't read this?" Draco asked, holding up the dripping spy novel.  "Because you talk as if you have…._Potter," he added with relish, chuckling privately to himself._

"I'm serious," Potter said, ignored the book.  "Is Somae cunning enough to cook up elaborate plots that involved a middle man in sunglasses and…meaningful feather messages?"

"Maybe," Draco said carefully.  "She's a lot like me."

"In other words entirely incapable of something like this."

"Hey! I was Slytherin," Draco protested.  Potter hardly noticed, instead beginning to pace the small confines of the bathroom.

"You did a very unconvincing cunning," he said in a distracted way, still pacing.  

"I'm still here, aren't I?"

"So?"

"So at this time yesterday didn't you expect to have gotten rid of me by now?"  Draco loaded his words with meaning; it took a damn lot of cunning to convince your childhood enemy that you were worthy of food and shelter.  Of this he was certain.

Potter came to a halt, faint anger darkening his face.  "I got rid of you last night, as I recall," he said, voice harsh and foreign.  "You're only in here lounging about in my tub because I opened the door to you this morning instead of using you as a welcome mat as I should have."

"Not my fault you're plagued with a guilty conscience," Draco said.  He then rose to his feet, water running off him in rivulets, no longer caring what Potter saw.  "Toss me out now if you want to, Potter.  Somae will be coming for me."

"Sure of that, are you?" Potter sneered a bit.  "Because Somae's _not_ coming for you.  The feather is supposed to be a message.  The bloke who came into the bar said you'd know what it meant."

Maybe it was having just risen out of warm water, but Draco felt himself suddenly go cold.  "He said that?" he asked dimly, stumbling out of the tub and yanking a towel off a high shelf.  

"Yes," Potter said, sneering in triumph.  Draco knotted the towel around his waist and cringed, hating to see Potter's face take on such an expression—that expression belonged to _him, not Harry-do-gooder-Potter._

"How am I supposed to know what it means?  It's a sodding feather."

"It's not just a feather.  It belongs to your fiancée.  Doesn't it mean _anything to you?"_

Draco stared at Potter, whose face was beginning to go pink with some kind of stifled emotion.  Frustration, was it?  Somehow, getting a rise out of Potter didn't give Draco the kind of rush it once would have.  Instead, it planted a tiny seed of worry within him, prompting him to tow the line, give Potter the answers he demanded.  He hated it, feeling like he owed Potter this obedience.  He didn't owe obedience to _anyone_ other than himself and his Malfoy name; everyone and everything else was inconsequential.  

"As far as I know, it _is just a feather.  Somae wore jewels and feathers in her hair all the time; the only thing special about this one is that it came from a Phoenix."_

"Yeah, a mythical creature whose very existence is only loaded with metaphorical significance.  That's not special at all."  The dripping sarcasm again.  It would have made Draco wince if he hadn't sort of admired it. Harry Potter could be _mean_, and once upon a time, Draco had actually taken credit for it. One of his best memories:  Potter throwing back and punching him in the gut after a Quidditch match, the snitch still struggling in his clenched fist.  It hurt like mad, sure, but the pain hadn't stopped a gleeful thought from ripping through his mind: _I did it!  Harry Potter hit me!  I got him, I did… _

"Okay then." Draco let out a sign through gritted teeth.  "To you it's special, clearly, but to people like _us"—he said, making it clear that __us did not include Potter—"a Phoenix feather is nothing.  Just another exotic, rare bauble that can be fancied up into an  accessory.  No hidden meaning, just glitz.  Like dragon hide boots."_

Potter frowned.  "As I recall, dragon hide is used for protection against various forms of damage. Elemental, chemical, and the like."

"For you, maybe."

"Why the fuck do you keep doing this?" Potter burst out, nearly shouting, nearly crying—it was hard to tell which.  And Draco saw then that there was more than just anger in his eyes; fear was there too, dark licks of it swarming just under the surface of that furious green.  

_Something happened to him.   _Something. . ._ A number of off-key, haywire thoughts filled Draco's head at once, swarming like a high-pitched choir of Cornish Pixies.  _Something like he really went crazy.  He left Hogwarts and went crazy and really whatever he once was is as good as gone.  Champion he's nothing like a champion and is this the only person I have here?  Is this my only way back because if it is I'm good as fucked.  Good as fucked and fuck, I might be going crazy myself here so how do we like that, Mister Malfoy?__

Draco gave his wet head a hard shake, willing it to stay earth-bound for the time being.  He thought he saw Potter do the same, biting down on his lower lip as if to keep his temper in check.  

"I really don't know what the feather means," Draco said, marvelling at the wooden quality of his own voice.  "I don't know what else to tell you, Potter.  I can't help it if I don't have the answers."  He thought it was the right course of action; to speak to Potter rationally and like an adult.  To give him straight, honest answers.  Unfortunately, this course of action did little to calm Potter down.

"Don't you fucking _do that," Potter said, jabbing a finger at Draco's sternum.  "You're condescending to me now?  Is that what you're doing?  I let you sit around in my bathtub and you act like that?"_

Draco frowned. Fine. If Potter didn't want a show of manners, then he'd rather not strain to deliver them.  "How else should I act around a person who is acting as nutters as you are?"  He tried to swat at Potter's finger, but Potter pulled away too quickly.  "I try to do what you want but none of it matters, it's always wrong somehow."  A whiny, almost desperate tone had entered Draco's own voice, and he fought valiantly against it, tightening his vocal cords until he went hoarse.

Potter said nothing in response, only looked at him with deep dissatisfaction, as if to acknowledge that yes, indeed, everything Draco did was always bound to be wrong.  Draco swallowed thickly, trying to saturate his dry throat.  Who would have thought that Harry Potter would one day be his own greatest critic?

"It's always wrong because you don't care about being right.  You've never had to be right, have you?" Potter cocked his head to one side as he asked, the scorn on his face indicating that he really didn't expect an answer.  "You've never had all the world's eyes boring into you, waiting for you to do the right thing.  Your life…your friends' lives…they've never depended on you being right.  Have they?  Have they?"  And on he went like a broken record, until Draco wanted to stuff the ends of his towel into his ears to block out the sound of his voice.  This was a familiar scenario; five years ago, it had been Potter's fists battering him.  Now it was words.  Draco was beginning to think he preferred the fists.

"Look at me!  Look at me!" Potter bleated, and now it was his voice that was tinged in desperation.  Draco looked and nearly let out a choking gasp.  It could have been that same day on the Quidditch Pitch; Harry's face, usually so tight with restrained feeling, was now patchy with emotion: angry red flushing his cheekbones; tight white circling his pursed mouth.  Before Draco could finish taking it in, the face swooped toward his own, teeth skidding against his shut mouth, nipping until Draco had no choice but to open, allowing Potter's lips to latch over his own, attacking with fierce suction and hot, sweeping tongue.  

_Fuck, not again.  _

Potter's hands pushed against Draco's bare chest until his head was knocked back into the tiled wall with a painful thump.  Dracp kept his mouth open, but otherwise did nothing, passive as a board because he knew now that this was Potter's new way of  beating the shit out of him, of trying to make him cry out in disgust and horror.  

_Is this his way of showing me just how bad he's become?  Like saying, 'look how low Harry Potter can sink'?_

And while part of Draco agreed that the notion of the great Harry Potter as a free-wheeling pooftie was a bit of humour too rich to pass up, another part was unimpressed.  Potter being gay wasn't a big deal; what was a big deal—to Potter himself, anyway—was kissing Draco Malfoy.  Harry Potter: so bad, so lost that he would gladly lock lips with Hogwarts's most-hated Slytherin.

_Well fuck that.  I'm not going to play a part in your own self-loathing.  _

It was hard to say who was more surprised by what Draco did next.  Without fully thinking it thought, he quickly wrapped his hands loosely around Harry's waist, nudging him a bit closer.  Then he leaned in to the kiss, his own tongue finally uncoiling from its hiding place at the floor of his mouth and tangling with Harry's own.  The taste was vaguely salty—like the taste of any other kiss—but Harry's lips were rougher than Somae's had been, his chin knobbly with invisible stubble.  Then, as a final gesture, Draco knocked his hips against Potter's own; the slight movement caused the towel to drop from his waist and land with an audible plop.

The whole thing had lasted scarcely a few seconds, but sometime between Draco putting his hands on Potter's waist and the sound of the dropping towel, Potter began to shove him away, finally breaking loose at the mouth and propelling his own body backwards until his shoes skidded on the wet floor.  He said nothing, gave Draco a half-hearted scowl, then lunged for the bathroom door.  

Draco slowly picked up his towel and re-knotted it around his waist, padding on bare feet towards the tiny medicine-chest mirror and swiping it clear of moisture with the palm of his hand.  The flesh around his mouth tingled faintly, and in his own reflection he could see how pink his entire face was.   So there it was, the one way to guarantee that Potter wouldn't hit on him: just hit back.  

"Potter," Draco called out, exiting the bathroom.  A quick scan of the flat indicated that Potter was probably sulking behind the closed door to his own bedroom.  Draco knocked twice and was greeted by some shuffling but no real answer.  He paused by the door for a long time, and finally, Potter's voice, now quiet and reasonable, came from behind it.

"I don't act this way around other people.  Just you."

His voice was muffled.  The door, Draco guessed.  He didn't know if Potter's words were supposed to be an apology or an explanation, and even though he waited there a while longer, Potter said nothing more.    

Draco finally left Potter's bedroom door and sat down at the tiny tea table, where he'd left the Phoenix feather sitting sideways in an empty teacup.  It meant nothing to him, but he wrapped his fingers around the feather and held it out-stretched before him, trying to will it to take on some sort of shape and significance in his memory.  __

He hated to sit still for long; it felt as if his brain were itching, and he had no choice but to tap his feet and shift around to get rid of it.  But it must have worked, because after what felt like hours of looking, the crimson plumage of the feather began to remind him of something: sun setting over sea, making it seem as if the blue-green waters of the bay were in flames.  And with that, there were sounds: gulls reeling overheard, their cries sharp but distant; waves lapping over stone, then hushed voices.

_"Would you do anything for me?"  _

_"Yes." _

_"Because you love me, right?"___

Draco gazed out through hazy eyelids, no longer seeing the feather, instead seeing only the blue-green of Somae's eyes…or was it the blue-green of the water?  As always, he couldn't tell.  Maybe the eyes were just green, after all; deceptively clear, it was a green that could darken in an instant.  

Then he bolted upright in his chair, feet hitting the floor with a thump.  He rubbed at his arms, weirdly certain that he could still feel warm salt air.  "Potter!" he called, his voice dry, caught somewhere between excitement and dread.  "The message…the feather.  Now I know."

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End file.
